’Twixt life and death. Next moment—direful clash!
Opens in thunder every dragon-maw
Of fierce artillery with its lightning-flash.
As cleaves Heaven’s thunderbolt the mountain ash,
So hurled in ruins is the battlement.
While Furies with that scourge its granite lash,
Not adamant, I ween, were long unbent,
And wider grows the breach and easier of ascent.
XVII.
Within the trenches many an eager eye