Now and in life—not Virgil—breaks a storm
Of Harpies, harsh to ear and foul to smell.
It sweeps War's lengthening coast, where each sea-swell
Is Humans, gasping. Hope drags each cold form
From hearth to hearth, to find no ember warm;
Then, their eyes glitter frost, who hear hope yell
As up she climbs the rocks and falls pell-mell
Back from small herbs, where monsters swoop and swarm.
Oh, could the bestial birds, in Virgil's verse,
See Hope's hands redden, as she rends her hair,