brood, and poured
     Blood of choice warriors on the foot-ploughed sands! 
     Thou, meantime, dark with conflict, as a cloud
     That thickens in the bosom of the West
     Over quenched sunset, circled round with flame,
     Huge as a billow running from the winds
     Long distances, till with black shipwreck swoln,
     It flings its angry mane about the sky. 
     And like that billow heaving ere it burst;
     And like that cloud urged by impulsive storm
     With charge of thunder, lightning, and the drench
     Of torrents, thou in all thy majesty
     Of mightiness didst fall upon the war! 
     Remember that great moment!  Nor forget
     The aid I gave thee; how my ready spear
     Flew swiftly seconding thy mortal stroke,
     Where’er the press was hottest; never slacked
     My arm its duty, nor mine eye its aim,
     Though terribly they compassed us, and stood
     Thick as an Autumn forest, whose brown hair,
     Lustrous with sunlight, by the still increase
     Of heat to glowing heat conceives like zeal
     Of radiance, till at the pitch of noon
     ’Tis seized with conflagration and distends
     Horridly over leagues of doom’d domain;
     Mingling the screams of birds, the cries of brutes,
     The wail of creatures in the covert pent,
     Howls, yells, and shrieks of agony, the hiss
     Of seething sap, and crash of falling boughs
     Together in its dull voracious roar. 
     So closely and so fearfully they throng’d,
     Savage with phantasies of victory,
     A sea of dusky shapes; for day had passed
     And night fell on their darkened faces, red
     With fight and torchflare; shrill the resonant air
     With eager shouts, and hoarse with angry groans;
     While over all the dense and sullen boom,
     The din and murmur of the myriads,
     Rolled with its awful intervals, as though
     The battle breathed, or as against the shore
     Waves gather back to heave themselves anew. 
     That night sleep dropped not from the dreary skies,
     Nor could the prowess of our chiefs oppose
     That sea of raging men.  But what were they? 
     Or what is man opposed to thee?  Its hopes
     Are wrecks, himself the drowning, drifting weed
     That wanders on thy waters; such as I
     Who see the scattered remnants of my fleet,
     Remembering the day when first we sailed,
     Each glad ship shining like the morning star
     With promise for the world.  Oh! such as I
     Thus darkly drifting on the drowning waves. 
     O God of waters! ’tis a dreadful thing
     To suffer for an evil unrevealed;
     Dreadful it is to hear the perishing cry
     Of those we love; the silence that succeeds
     How dreadful!  Still my trust is fixed on thee
     For those that still remain and for myself.