And walk the plains like skeletons of death,

Imparting oaths at each receding breath;

Whose tongues hang down upon their fleshless breasts,

And waste their foam like over-burthen’d beasts.

But there were, also, those grandees of state;

And in their midst that mighty Autocrat,

The Governor of all therein; and he

Unbarr’d the gate of immortality:

While Vulcan, in attendance on the god,

Had watch’d his master, and observed his nod: