Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/46

40 The human sea is frozen like a swamp; and the kings And the heirs and the owners ride on the ice and laugh. Their war-forces, orders, and laws are the crusted field of a crater, And they stamp on the fearful rind, deriding its flesh-like shudder.

Lightning! the air is split, the crater bursts, and the breathing Of those below is the fume and fire of hatred. The thrones are stayed with the courage of shotted guns. The warning dies. But queens are dragged to the block, and the knife of the guillotine sinks In the garbage of pampered flesh that gluts its bed and its hinges.

Silence again, and sunshine. The gaping lips are closed on the crater.