| No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air | |
| And binds the brain—a dense oppression, such | |
| As tawny tigers feel in matted shades, | |
| Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage. | |
| Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads | 5 |
| Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by. | |
| Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf | |
| Of muffled sound, the atheist roar of riot. | |
| Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought | |
| Balefully glares red Arson—there—and there. | 10 |
| The town is taken by its rats—ship-rats | |
| And rats of the wharves. All civil charms | |
| And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe— | |
| Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway | |
| Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, | 15 |
| And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature. | |
| Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, | |
| And ponderous drag that shakes the wall. | |
| Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll | |
| Of black artillery; he comes, though late; | 20 |
| In code corroborating Calvin’s creed | |
| And cynic tyrannies of honest kings; | |
| He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed, | |
| Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds | |
| The grimy slur on the Republic’s faith implied, | 25 |
| Which holds that Man is naturally good, | |
| And—more—is Nature’s Roman, never to be scourged. | |
