A double monster, with a gloating leer
Fix’d on his other half. They drew them near,
One after one, led onward by Despair,
That like the last of winter glimmer’d there,—
A dismal prologue to his brother Death,
Which was behind; and, with the horrid breath
Of his wide baneful nostrils, plied them on.
And often as they saw the skeleton
Grisly beside them, the wild phantasies
Grew mad and howl’d; the fever of disease