The Fire-king he caught her and held her, in warm and unyielding embrace;
He wrapped her about in his vestments, he pressed his hot lips to her face;
Then, sated and palled with his triumph, he scornfully flung her away,
And, blackened and crushed in the ruins, unknown and uncoffined, she lay—
Lay, blackened and crushed by the Fire-king, in ruined and desolate rest,
Like ravished and ruined Chicago, the Queen of the North and the West.
IX.
'Twas morn in the desolate city,
The ragged and ruin-heaped city,
The homeless and hot-smoking city,