Worse to be vassal to the man I hate,"
With hueless lips. His whole white face that hour
Was scorched; and blistered was the dead tree's bark;
Yet there he stood; and in that fiery light
His life, no more triumphant, passed once more
In underthought before him, while on spread
The swift, contagious madness of that fire,
And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man,
"The mighty flame into itself takes all,"
Mechanic iteration. Not alone
Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House
By him once more and closer than of old,
Stood, whispering thus, "Thy game is now played out;
Henceforth a byword art thou--rich in youth -
Self-beggared in old age." And as the wind
Of that shrill whisper cut his listening soul,
The blazing roof fell in on all his wealth,
Hard-won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;
And, loud as laughter from ten thousand fiends,
Up rushed the fire. With arms outstretched he stood;
Stood firm; then forward with a wild beast's cry
He dashed himself into that terrible flame,
And vanished as a leaf.

Upon a spur
Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope,
Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn,
When distant o'er the brown and billowy moor
Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame,
From site unknown; for by the seaward crest