LES HURLEURS.
The sun in the billows had extinguished its flame,
Under mountains fog-covered, slept peaceful the town,
On the huge boulders, washed by a foam-cloud, low down,
Dashed the ocean in thunder, its power to proclaim.
Night multiplied the long hollow tumult of sound!
Not a star shone forth in the immensity blue,
Only a moon mournful, its cloud-bars breaking through,
Like a pale lamp, swung sad in the welkin profound.
Silent globe with a sign on its forehead of wrath!
Débris of a world dead, flung at hazard in space!
It shed from its orb frozen of faint light a trace
Sepulchral, on the south ocean's limitless path.
Afar, towards the north, where the vapours hung deep,
Africa, sheltering herself in the night's sombre bands,
Her gaunt lions famished on the smoking dull sands,
And her herds of elephants, by lakes lulled to sleep.
On the shores arid, amid insalubrious smells
Of bones of oxen and steeds all scattered about,
Lean dogs here and there lengthened their fierce muzzles out
And joined in lugubrious demoniac yells.
