The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment
Among the slain—­dead earth upon the earth! 
So these survivors, each by different ways,
Some strange, all sudden, none dishonourable, 400
Met in triumphant death; and when our army
Closed in, while yet wonder, and awe, and shame
Held back the base hyaenas of the battle
That feed upon the dead and fly the living,
One rose out of the chaos of the slain:  405
And if it were a corpse which some dread spirit
Of the old saviours of the land we rule
Had lifted in its anger, wandering by;—­
Or if there burned within the dying man
Unquenchable disdain of death, and faith 410
Creating what it feigned;—­I cannot tell—­
But he cried, ’Phantoms of the free, we come! 
Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike
To dust the citadels of sanguine kings,
And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, 415
And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew;—­
O ye who float around this clime, and weave
The garment of the glory which it wears,
Whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped,
Lies sepulchred in monumental thought;—­ 420
Progenitors of all that yet is great,
Ascribe to your bright senate, O accept
In your high ministrations, us, your sons—­
Us first, and the more glorious yet to come! 
And ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale 425
When the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread,
The vultures and the dogs, your pensioners tame,
Are overgorged; but, like oppressors, still
They crave the relic of Destruction’s feast. 
The exhalations and the thirsty winds 430
Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death;
Heaven’s light is quenched in slaughter:  thus, where’er
Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets,
The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast
Of these dead limbs,—­upon your streams and mountains, 435
Upon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops,
Where’er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly,
Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down
With poisoned light—­Famine, and Pestilence,
And Panic, shall wage war upon our side! 440
Nature from all her boundaries is moved
Against ye:  Time has found ye light as foam. 
The Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake
Their empire o’er the unborn world of men
On this one cast;—­but ere the die be thrown, 445
The renovated genius of our race,
Proud umpire of the impious game, descends,
A seraph-winged Victory, bestriding
The tempest of the Omnipotence of God,
Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom, 450
And you to oblivion!’—­More he would have said,
But—­