The shrouds--O, in one snowy gale, The pink hands fluttered them out, and spread them on their knees. Who knew what gouts might drop, what filthy flakes of grease, Now that o'er every shoulder, through the coiling steam, Inhuman faces peered, with wolfish eyes a-gleam, And grey-faced vampire Lusts that whinneyed in each ear Hints of the hideous courses? None may name them here? None? And we may not see! The distant cauldrons cloak The lava-coloured plains with clouds of umber smoke. Nay, by that shrapnel-light, by those wild shooting stars That rip the clouds away with fiercer fire than Mars, They are painted sharp as death. If these can eat and drink Chatter and laugh and rattle their knives, why should we shrink From empty names? We know those ghastly gleams are true: Why should Christ cry again--_They know not what they do?_ They, heirs of all the ages, sons of Shakespeare's land, They, brothers of Beethoven, smiling, cultured, bland, Whisper with sidling heads to ghouls with bloody lips. Each takes upon his plate a small round thing that drips And quivers, a child's heart. Miles on miles The glittering table bends o'er that first course, and smiles; For, through the wreaths of smoke, the grey Lusts bear aloft The second course, on leaden chargers, large and soft, Bodies of women, steaming in an opal mist, Red-branded here and there where vampire-teeth have kissed. But white as pig's flesh, newly killed, and cleanly dressed, A lemon in each mouth and roses round each breast, Emblems to show how deeply, sweetly satisfied, The breasts, the lips, can sleep, whose children fought and died For--what? For country? God, once more Thy shrapnel-light!