Aubrey Thomas De Vere

Nemesis

I DREAMED. Great bells around me pealed;
  The world in that sad chime was drowned;
Sharp cries as from a battle-field
  Were strangled in the wondrous sound:
Had all the kings of earth lain dead,
Had nations borne them lapped in lead
To torch-lit vaults with plume and pall,
Such bells had served for funeral.

’T was fantasy’s dark work! I slept
  Where black Baltard o’erlooks the deep;
Plunging all night the billows kept
  Their ghostly vigil round my sleep.
But I had fed on tragic lore
That day,—your annals, “Masters Four!”
And every moan of wind and sea
Was as a funeral chime to me.