And suddenly, as rolling upon wheels, adown the cliff it rushed,
And I thought, in my hot brain, of the Muscovites' icy slope;
A thousand yards in a moment we ploughed the sandy seas,
And crushed those happy fields, and that smiling village,
And onward, as a living thing, still rushed my mighty throne,
Thundering along, and pounding, as it went, the millions in my way:
Before me all was life, and joy, and full-blown summer,
Behind me death and woe, the desert and simoom.
Then I wept and shrieked aloud, for pity and for fear;
But might not stop, for, comet-like, flew on the maddened mass