That hoards the sunlight in a myriad spires,
Crashed:  and struck echo through an army’s heart. 
Then paused Goliath, and stared down again. 
And fleet-foot Fear from rolling orbs perceived
Steadfast, unharmed, a stooping shepherd-boy
Frowning upon the target of his face. 
And wrath tossed suddenly up once more his hand;
And a deep groan grieved all his strength in him. 
He breathed; and, lost in dazzling darkness, prayed—­
Besought his reins, his gloating gods, his youth: 
And turned to smite what he no more could see. 
Then sped the singing pebble-messenger,
The chosen of the Lord from Israel’s brooks,
Fleet to its mark, and hollowed a light path
Down to the appalling Babel of his brain. 
And like the smoke of dreaming Souffriere
Dust rose in cloud, spread wide, slow silted down
Softly all softly on his armour’s blaze.

* * * * *

CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE

* * * * *

FALSTAFF

’Twas in a tavern that with old age stooped
And leaned rheumatic rafters o’er his head—­
A blowzed, prodigious man, which talked, and stared,
And rolled, as if with purpose, a small eye
Like a sweet Cupid in a cask of wine. 
I could not view his fatness for his soul,
Which peeped like harmless lightnings and was gone;
As haps to voyagers of the summer air. 
And when he laughed, Time trickled down those beams,
As in a glass; and when in self-defence
He puffed that paunch, and wagged that huge, Greek head,
Nosed like a Punchinello, then it seemed
An hundred widows swept in his small voice,
Now tenor, and now bass of drummy war. 
He smiled, compact of loam, this orchard man;
Mused like a midnight, webbed with moonbeam snares
Of flitting Love; woke—­and a King he stood,
Whom all the world hath in sheer jest refused
For helpless laughter’s sake.  And then, forfend! 
Bacchus and Jove reared vast Olympus there;
And Pan leaned leering from Promethean eyes. 
“Lord!” sighed his aspect, weeping o’er the jest,
“What simple mouse brought such a mountain forth?”

MACBETH

Rose, like dim battlements, the hills and reared
Steep crags into the fading primrose sky;
But in the desolate valleys fell small rain,
Mingled with drifting cloud.  I saw one come,
Like the fierce passion of that vacant place,
His face turned glittering to the evening sky;
His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly
On the still, rainy turrets of the storm;
And all his armour in a haze of blue. 
He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched,
As if to hide the inextinguishable blood
Murder had painted there.  And his wild mouth
Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts. 
Around his head, like vipers all distort,
His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride. 
If fire may burn invisible to the eye;
O, if despair strive everlastingly;
Then haunted here the creature of despair,
Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon
A soul still childish in a blackened hell.