THE PASSING-BELL

A roaring furnace, and a passing-bell;

Grim vitreous gloom, and one low, raking gleam

From a spent sun that spills its passive beam

Athwart a smouldering city. Comes the smell

Of sweat and labour. The sad, sullen knell

Booms in the brain. As in a baleful dream

A panting siren, veiled with hissing steam,

Shrieks like a looming horror deep in hell.

A flaccid flood of faces, blanched with doom,

And raucous cries from out a blinking dark

Crowd on the callous dusk. With haunting bark

Death hunts his hapless victims. Heaven's sick bloom

Swoons in the frost. Through droning twilight — hark!

The slow, thick, ominous burden of the tomb.