46. There was a desolate village in a wood _2740 Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed The hungry storm; it was a place of blood, A heap of hearthless walls;--the flames were dead Within those dwellings now,--the life had fled From all those corpses now,--but the wide sky _2745 Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead By the black rafters, and around did lie Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly. 47. Beside the fountain in the market-place Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare _2750 With horny eyes upon each other's face, And on the earth and on the vacant air, And upon me, close to the waters where I stooped to slake my thirst;--I shrank to taste, For the salt bitterness of blood was there; _2755 But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste. 48. No living thing was there beside one woman, Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she Was withered from a likeness of aught human _2760 Into a fiend, by some strange misery: Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me, And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee, And cried, 'Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed _2765 The Plague's blue kisses--soon millions shall pledge the draught! 49. 'My name is Pestilence--this bosom dry, Once fed two babes--a sister and a brother-- When I came home, one in the blood did lie Of three death-wounds--the flames had ate the other! _2770 Since then I have no longer been a mother, But I am Pestilence;--hither and thither I flit about, that I may slay and smother:-- All lips which I have kissed must surely wither, But Death's--if thou art he, we'll go to work together! _2775 50. 'What seek'st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,-- The dew is rising dankly from the dell-- 'Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes In my sweet boy, now full of worms--but tell First what thou seek'st.'--'I seek for food.'--''Tis well, _2780 Thou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour, Waits for us at the feast--cruel and fell Is Famine, but he drives not from his door Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!' 51. As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength _2785 Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth She led, and over many a corpse:--at length We came to a lone hut where on the earth Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth, Gathering from all those homes now desolate, _2790 Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth Among the dead--round which she set in state A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.