Beneath an iron heel; the heavy whirr
Of battle wheels; a hungry leopard’s purr,
And sigh of swords withdrawing from the wound—:
All, all are in thy dreadful fugue, O Life,
Thy dark, malign and monstrous music, spun
In hell, from a delirious Satan’s dream!***
O! dissonance primordial and supreme—
The moan, the thunder, evermore at strife,
Beneath the unheeding silence of the sun!