Note 76 — THE HISTORIAN OF THE REVOLUTION

"Since the world's first wail went up from lands and seas Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like these. Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell Down the deepest and the loathiest ways of hell, Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire, Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire, Saw not, where filth was foulest, and the night Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite. Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams. Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives Rent with deadlier pangs than death—for shame survives, Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered, Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured. Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thoughts could shape, Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape," etc. Swinburne: "Russia: An Ode."