Page:The Man Who Died Twice (1924).djvu/80

 Intoxicated by their swift invasion

Whereafter conquest was an easy trifle,

And hating the magnificence they cursed,

Seeing not the beauty or the use of it,

They soiled with earthy feet the shining floor

Flinging the dregs of their debaucheries

From crystal cups against the gleaming walls

Of Life’s immortal house. Too ignorant

Of where they were to be afraid to know,

They shrieked and sang in shrill delirium

With vicious ecstasy for louder drums—

Till, crowning insolence with infamy,

They must have wearied God—who, pitying them,

Smote with avenging trumpets into silence

All but those drums of death, which, played by Death

Himself, were beating sullenly alone.