Mingling with forms more palpably defined,
That whirl and dance like leaves upon the wind;
Who marshal in array their arrowy hosts,
And rush to battle in a cloud-like land;
Thick phalanx’d on those far aërial coasts,
As swarms of locusts plaguing Samarcand.
‘Oh, who would live,’ they cry, ‘in time like this!
A time of conflict fierce, and trouble strange;
When Old and New, over a dark abyss,
Fight the great battle of relentless change?’