Iron deliverer whom the furies choose!

Half-human and half deity in repose,

Envying each victim as its ravening grows,

Aye, the invincible! but whose

Armour cages a sigh no slaughter can depose.

Below him a thin harvest rusts in rain,

Lean flocks come limping to the herder's fife.

In that brown light, a mounted traveller

Splashes a silver river scarecely flowing

Through banks of ageing poplars;

On those unconquered peaks, it may be snowing.

On amber landscapes, hardly true to life

Is laid sometimes the quiet of unknowing

That elsewhere murderous teeth champ and devour,

As if such art placated nature's laws.

The small furred beast, spent beyond trembling

Contains such such peace between its torturer's claws

Take these small sparrows, witless if you will

That in the frightful glory of this hour

Flirt with that armed mass quiet on the hill,

Who dip, twitter, alight

On windless pennons, on these iron sheeves;

What are they? Fables of innocence trusting in power,

Or natural thoughts that haunt their source still?

If one cried out pity might shake the mind

Like a limp pennon in a sudden wind,

And joy remembered make rage the more.

And at that cry, the god must raise his hand

However wearily, and all respite end

In noise and neighing thunder, in a wealth

Of sounding brass and the conqueror, sighing descend

Down to the desolation of self.