Page:Betelguese, a trip through hell.djvu/66

58 When plunderéd tombs betray their trust,

And vandals screech at roving gnomes,

All raise a voice and curse each ghaut.

Beyond the ring and roll of hell—

And spiral lofts of quartz and gold— We skirr upon the crutch of haste

And cleave the abyss, cold and bleak.

There jejune fossils lie to tell

Of pleiocene days' garneréd fold;

Gray bones that pierce this weird waste

Lie mounted on a torrid peak;

Principalities of the past,

Lie scatter'd in the mildewed dust;

Serai's built in ages gone,

Now crumble at a sound, a voice.

And Boulders that the Djinnee cast

As Vengeance swirl'd the heated dust,

Now rock as devils rasp a son,

And vampyres dance round and round.

And where a dim, unstudded dome