As if they gaped and found the time but ill, Wearied the ages passed so slowly by, And that the gory dead no more did lie Beneath their feet--pined for the battle-cry, The trumpet's clash, the carnage and the strife, Yawning to taste again their dreadful life. Like tears upon the palfreys' muzzles were The hard reflections of the metal there; From out these spectres, ages past exhumed, And as their shadows on the roof-beams loomed, Cast by the trembling light, each figure wan Seemed growing, and a monstrous shape to don, So that the double range of horrors made The darkened zenith clouds of blackest shade, That shaped themselves to profiles terrible. All motionless the coursers horrible, That formed a legion lured by Death to war, These men and horses masked, how dread they are! Absorbed in shadows of the eternal shore, Among the living all their tasks are o'er. Silent, they seem all mystery to brave, These sphinxes whom no beacon light can save Upon the threshold of the gulf so near, As if they faced the great enigma here; Ready with hoofs, between the pillars blue To strike out sparks, and combats to renew, Choosing for battle-field the shades below, Which they provoked by deeds we cannot know, In that dark realm thought dares not to expound False masks from heaven lowered to depths profound. IX. A NOISE ON THE FLOOR. This is the scene on which now enters in Eviradnus; and follows page Gasclin. The outer walls were almost all decayed, The door, for ancient Marquises once made-- Raised many steps above the courtyard near-- Commanded view of the horizon clear. The forest looked a great gulf all around, And on the rock of Corbus there were found Secret and blood-stained precipices tall. Duke Plato built the tower and banquet hall Over great pits,--so was it Rumor said. The flooring sounds 'neath Eviradnus' tread Above abysses many. "Page," said he, "Come here, your eyes than mine can better see, For sight is woman-like and shuns the old; Ah! he can see enough, when years are told, Who backwards looks. But, boy, turn towards the glade And tell me what you see." The boy obeyed, And leaned across the threshold, while the bright, Full moon shed o'er the glade its white, pure light.