LOVE, the marauder,

Rides through the champaign;

Bright is his panoply,

Bitter his dart.

Golden his helm, but of

Steel is his corselet;

Winsome his visage, but

Hard is his heart.

Baleful and beautiful,

Scattering his death-shafts,

Love, the destroyer,

Rides through the plain.

Splashed to the hocks with

Blood is his war-horse,

Strung to his housings are

Scalps of the slain.

Love, the Demoniac,

Sweeps through the universe,

Fell as the blast of the

Burning simoom,

Leaving a dolorous

Track in the wake of him,

Tears and confusion and

Madness and doom.