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68 Goad them to fresh pastures.

Beside still waters

They drink of blood and neigh a horrible laughter,

And their ponderous tread shakes happy cities down,

And the thresh of their flail-like tails

Makes acres smolder and smoke

Blackened of golden harvest.

The Beasts are back,

And men, in their spreading shadow,

Inhale the odor of their nauseous breath.

Inebriate with it they fashion other gods

Than the gods of day-dream.

Of iron and steel are little images

Made of the Beasts.

And men rush forth and fling themselves for ritual

Before these gods, before the lumbering Beasts,—

And some make long obeisance.

Umber and violet flowers of the sky,

The sun, like a blazing Mars, clanks across the blue

And plucks you to fashion into a nosegay

To offer Venus, his old-time paramour.

And now she shrinks

And pales

Like Cynthia, her more ascetic sister ...