The sky is very near to me to-night:

It breathes, as from a throat of molten lead,

A damnÈd effluence about my head,

An effluence of hell, a foetid blight:

Dark visions break on my distorted sight

Of bloody lust and cruelty and dread,

Devils unnamed in their own likeness tread

The ways of earth, and are not put to flight.

In rifts of voiceless lightning, such as breaks

This goitrous firmament, have stood revealed

Over the dead in some old battlefield

The ghastly dogs of death, and bloated snakes

Dripping the slime of Acherontian lakes

On some dead sovereign's blood-emblazoned shield.