  Her hand falls helpless: thought amazements fly Far overhead, they leave no record mark— Wild swans urged whistling across dazzled sky, Or Gabriel hounds in chorus through the dark. Yet when she prophesies, each spirit swan, Each spectral hound from memory’s windy zones, Flies back to inspire one limb-strewn skeleton Of thousands in her valley of dry bones. There as those life-restored battalions shout, Succession flags and Time goes maimed in flight: From each live gullet twenty swans glide out With hell-packs loathlier yet to amaze the night. Gabriel hounds, a spectral pack hunting the souls of the damned through the air at night: the origin of this belief some find in the strange noise made by the passage of flocks of wild geese or swans. |
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