Classic Poem

A roaring furnace, and a passing-bell;
Grim vitreous gloom, and one low, raking gleam
From a spent sun that spills its passive beam
Athwart a smouldering city. Comes the smell
Of sweat and labour. The sad, sullen knell
Booms in the brain. As in a baleful dream
A panting siren, veiled with hissing steam,
Shrieks like a looming horror deep in hell.

A flaccid flood of faces, blanched with doom,
And raucous cries from out a blinking dark
Crowd on the callous dusk. With haunting bark
Death hunts his hapless victims. Heaven's sick bloom
Swoons in the frost. Through droning twilight--hark!
The slow, thick, ominous burden of the tomb.