L. GIELGUD

The sky is very near to me to-night: It breathes, as from a throat of molten lead, A damnèd effluence about my head, An effluence of hell, a fœtid blight: Dark visions break on my distorted sight Of bloody lust and cruelty and dread, Devils unnamed in their own likeness tread The ways of earth, and are not put to flight. In rifts of voiceless lightning, such as breaks This goitrous firmament, have stood revealed Over the dead in some old battlefield The ghastly dogs of death, and bloated snakes Dripping the slime of Acherontian lakes On some dead sovereign's blood-emblazoned shield.