Brooding above the valley like the wing
Of a destroying angel dark and dread;
And in its awful depth I see a brow
On which is stamped in fiery characters
The one word—Plague. The beds of dewy flowers
Are pressed by loathsome forms of dark disease,
Putrid though living; some have dragged their weak
And fainting limbs to where the pure stream glides,
But sink ere they can quench their burning thirst
In its cool waters; some bow down their heads