And even as, like unto lifeless spectres of folk long dead, {1280}
Men creep through the streets of a town, and despairing the issue await
Of famine or leaguer of war, or a tempest unspeakably great
Which hath swept o’er the land, and hath flooded the labours of oxen untold;
Or when great gouts of blood from the images sweating have rolled,
Or when from the shrines of the temple ghostly bellowings wail,
Or the sun o’er the day’s mid noontide draweth the night’s black veil
Out of heaven, and the glittering stars come forth in splendour pale;
So stricken, the chieftains then by the strand’s verge endless-wide
Roamed loitering on. And at one stride came dark eventide.