Over the bickering gonfalons, * far-ranged as for Tartarean wars,
Went a waver of ribbed fire *--as night-seas on phosphoric bars
Like a flame-plumed fan shake slowly out * their ridgy reach of
crumbling stars.

At length to where on His fretted Throne * sat in the heart of His
aged dominions
The great Triune, and Mary nigh, * lit round with spears of their
hauberked minions,
The poet drew, in the thunderous blue * involved dread of those
mounted pinions.

As in a secret and tenebrous cloud * the watcher from the disquiet
earth
At momentary intervals * beholds from its ragged rifts break forth
The flash of a golden perturbation, * the travelling threat of a
witched birth;

Till heavily parts a sinister chasm, * a grisly jaw, whose verges
soon,
Slowly and ominously filled * by the on-coming plenilune,
Supportlessly congest with fire, * and suddenly spit forth the
moon:-

With beauty, not terror, through tangled error * of night-dipt
plumes so burned their charge;
Swayed and parted the globing clusters * so,--disclosed from their
kindling marge,
Roseal-chapleted, splendent-vestured, * the singer there where God's