In a long sad row the old gods come;
They come and bow to me.
Like candle-flames in a raftered room,
Like trees in an avenue of doom,
They bend in unity.
And a sound comes from them, a terrible sound,
Like the wind in a tamarisk grove,
Or a howl from some treacherous marshy ground
Where the swamp-demons move.
And in that moan is the cracking of sticks
Where Behemoth stalks thro’ the trees;
And in that moan is the flame that licks
The knees of Rameses:
And in that moan rocks Nineveh
With her golden roofs and floors!
And in that moan quakes Babylon
With her columned corridors!
From my little green seat of piled-up sods
Like a dwarf on a churchyard mound
I watch that row of bowing Gods
And I hear that terrible sound.
They nod and mutter; they sway and bend
Like monoliths of stone,
Like huge gaunt birds on a branches’ end,
And as they bend they moan.
They shiver like monstrous skeleton leaves;
They rattle like gibbets stark;
They reel like ruined autumn sheaves
In the stubble of the dark.
Their eye-sockets are hollow and deep;
Their foreheads are cliffs of doom;
And they bleat at me like gigantic sheep
That are herded in a tomb.
And very slowly I lift my head--
And slowly I lift my hand
--And a row of horny beetles dead
Lie scattered in the sand!