Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang
Of bells for their own ruin, strews them flat
As riddled ashes—silent as the grave?
Walks not Contagion on the Air itself?
I should—old Ocean’s Saturnalian days
And roaring nights of revelry and sport
With wreck and human woe—be loth to sing;
For they are few and all their ills weigh light
Against his sacred usefulness, that bids
Our pensile globe revolve in purer air.