But hark--she stops--she listens--dreadful tone!
'Tis her Tormentor's laugh--and now, a groan,
A long death-groan comes with it--can this be
The place of mirth, the bower of revelry?
She enters--Holy ALLA, what a sight
Was there before her! By the glimmering light
Of the pale dawn, mixt with the flare of brands
That round lay burning dropt from lifeless hands,
She saw the board in splendid mockery spread,
Rich censers breathing--garlands overhead--
The urns, the cups, from which they late had quaft
All gold and gems, but--what had been the draught?
Oh! who need ask that saw those livid guests,
With their swollen heads sunk blackening on their breasts,
Or looking pale to Heaven with glassy glare,
As if they sought but saw no mercy there;
As if they felt, tho' poison racked them thro',
Remorse the deadlier torment of the two!
While some, the bravest, hardiest in the train
Of their false Chief, who on the battle-plain
Would have met death with transport by his side,
Here mute and helpless gasped;--but as they died
Lookt horrible vengeance with their eyes' last strain,
And clenched the slackening hand at him in vain.
Dreadful it was to see the ghastly stare,
The stony look of horror and despair,
Which some of these expiring victims cast
Upon their souls' tormentor to the last;
Upon that mocking Fiend whose Veil now raised,
Showed them as in death's agony they gazed,
Not the long promised light, the brow whose beaming
Was to come forth, all conquering, all redeeming,
But features horribler than Hell e'er traced
On its own brood;--no Demon of the Waste,[134]
No church-yard Ghoul caught lingering in the light
Of the blest sun, e'er blasted human sight
With lineaments so foul, so fierce as those
The Impostor now in grinning mockery shows:--
"There, ye wise Saints, behold your Light, your Star--
"Ye _would_ be dupes and victims and ye _are_.
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