"How I revel on the Prairie! How I roar among the Pines!
How I laugh when from the village o'er the snow the red flame shines,
And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a Life in every breath!
How I scream with lambent laughter as I hurl each crackling rafter
Down the fell abyss of Fire, until higher! higher! higher!
Leap the High Priests of my Altar in their merry Dance of Death!"
VII.
"I am monarch of the Fire! I am Vassal-King of Death!
World-encircling, with the shadow of its Doom upon my breath!
With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from my fatal face!
I command the Eternal Fire! Higher! higher! higher I higher!
Leap my ministering Demons, like Phantasmagoric lemans
Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous embrace!"
VIII.
When a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouded sleep,
And I slumbered, like an infant in the "Cradle of the Deep,"
Till the Belfry in the Forest quivered with the matin stroke,
And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidden ledges,
Shimmered through the russet arches where the Light in torn file marches,
Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak.
