Page:The Siege of Valencia.pdf/238

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And with the waving of ten thousand plumes, Like a land's harvest in the autumn-wind, And with fierce light, which is not of the sun, But flung from sheets of steel—it comes, it comes, The vengeance of our God!

I hear it now, The heavy tread of mail-clad multitudes, Like thunder-showers upon the forest-paths.

Aye, earth knows well the omen of that sound, And she hath echoes, like a sepulchre's, Pent in her secret hollows, to respond Unto the step of death!

Hark! how the wind Swells proudly with the battle-march of Spain! Now the heart feels its power!—A little while Grant me to live, my God!—What pause is this?

A deep and dreadful one!—the serried files Level their spears for combat; now the hosts Look on each other in their brooding wrath, Silent, and face to face.