THE PASSING-BELL
AN IMPRESSION
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.