Through piety is lust brought down, and put to rout.
Shall that sweet face e’er blacken through sin’s dismal smoke,
That’s brightened by such sheen as virtue must invoke?
A conflagration raged in days of great ‘Umer,
Stones were devoured therein, as firewood in the air.[407]210
The buildings it consumed, and left whole households waste;
The nests and nestlings were destroyed;—last trump’s foretaste.
One half Medīna fell a prey to ruthless flame,
Whereat th’ aqueous element might well feel shame.
Whole cisterns were exhausted in the combat wild;