)
Where the towers of the North fret the skies of the East.

III.

Since that sunrise which rose through the calm linden stems
O'er Lucile and Eugene, in the garden of Ems,
Through twenty-five seasons encircling the sun,
This planet of ours on its pathway hath gone,
And the fates that I sing of have flowed with the fates
Of a world, in the red wake of war, round the gates
Of that doom'd and heroical city, in which
(Fire crowning the rampart, blood bathing the ditch!),
At bay, fights the Russian as some hunted bear,
Whom the huntsmen have hemm'd round at last in his lair.

IV.

A fang'd, arid plain, sapp'd with underground fire,
Soak'd with snow, torn with shot, mash'd to one gory mire!
There Fate's iron scale hangs in horrid suspense,
While those two famished ogres--the Siege, the Defence,
Face to face, through a vapor frore, dismal, and dun,
Glare, scenting the breath of each other.
The one
Double-bodied, two-headed--by separate ways
Winding, serpent-wise, nearer; the other, each day's
Sullen toil adding size to,--concentrated, solid,
Indefatigable--the brass-fronted, embodied,
And audible [Greek text omitted] gone sombrely forth
To the world from that Autocrat Will of the north!

V.

In the dawn of a moody October, a pale
Ghostly motionless vapor began to prevail
Over city and camp; like the garment of death
Which (is formed by) the face it conceals.
'Twas the breath
War, yet drowsily yawning, began to suspire;
Wherethrough, here and there, flash'd an eye of red fire,
And closed, from some rampart beginning to bellow
Hoarse challenge; replied to anon, through the yellow
And sulphurous twilight: till day reel'd and rock'd
And roar'd into dark. Then the midnight was mock'd
With fierce apparitions. Ring'd round by a rain
Of red fire, and of iron, the murtherous plain
Flared with fitful combustion; where fitfully fell
Afar off the fatal, disgorged scharpenelle,
And fired the horizon, and singed the coil'd gloom
With wings of swift flame round that City of Doom.

VI.

So the day--so the night! So by night, so by day,
With stern patient pathos, while time wears away,