While flames and smoke and blood stream wildly forth. I see thy proud defiant giant-children, Primeval monsters, from dark gulfs arising And swinging ruddy torches in their hands. Their iron scaling-ladders they advance, And wildly rush to storm the forts of heaven, And swarthy dwarfs climb after them; with crackling Each golden star on high like dust is scatter’d. With daring hand they tear the golden curtain From God’s own tent; the blessèd troops of angels Fall headlong down with howling at the sight. The pale God sits upon his awful throne, Tears from his head his crown, and tears his hair.-- Still onward, onward press the savage crew, The giants fiercely hurl their blazing torches Into the realms of heaven, the dwarfs strike wildly With flaming scourges on the angels’ backs, Who twist and writhe in ecstasy of anguish, And by the hair are seized and whirl’d away. And my own angel likewise see I there, With his blond locks, his sweet expressive features, With everlasting love around his mouth, And with beatitude in his blue eyes. A fearful hideous swarthy goblin comes, Tears him from off the ground, my poor pale angel, Grins as he ogles his fair noble limbs, And clasps him firmly in his soft embraces,-- A yell re-echoes through the universe, The pillars crash, and earth and heaven are hurl’d Headlong together, and old night is lord. RATCLIFF.[8] The Dream-God brought me to a landscape fair Where weeping willows nodded me a welcome With their long verdant arms, and where the flowers Gazed on me mutely with wise sisters’ eyes, Where the birds’ twittering resounded sweetly, Where the dogs’ barking seem’d to me familiar, And voices kindly greeted me, and figures, Like an old friend, and yet where everything Appear’d so strange, beyond description strange. Before a pretty country-house I stood, My bosom in me moving, but my head All peaceful, and the dust with calmness shook I From off my travelling garments; shrilly sounded The bell I rang, and then the door was open’d.