The harsh, brief sob of broken horns; the sound

Of hammers, on some echoing sepulchre;

Lutes in a thunderstorm; a dulcimer

By sudden drums and clamouring bugles drowned;

Crackle of pearls, and gritting rubies, ground

Beneath an iron heel; the heavy whirr

Of battle wheels; a hungry leopard’s purr,

And sigh of swords withdrawing from the wound—:

All, all are in thy dreadful fugue, O Life,

Thy dark, malign and monstrous music, spun

In hell, from a delirious Satan’s dream!***

O! dissonance primordial and supreme—

The moan, the thunder, evermore at strife,

Beneath the unheeding silence of the sun!