And a lurid universal night,

Lit by quenchless fires for unquenched sages,

Thick with spectral broods that shun the light,

Looms impervious o'er the stifled ages

Where the blameless wise

Fall a sacrifice,

Fall as fell of old

The unspotted firstlings of the fold.

[41]

And the violent feud of clashing creeds

Shatters empires and breaks realms asunder;

Cities tremble, sceptres shake like reeds

At the swift bolts of the Papal thunder;

Yea, the bravest quail,

Cast from out the pale

Of all Christendom

By the dread anathemas of Rome.

And like one misled by marish gleams

When he hears the shrill cock's note of warning,

Europe, starting from its trance of dreams,

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