Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears As a tall ship breaks the sea.
His face like a sanguine sunset, His shoulder a Wessex down,His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;Men could not count the crests he broke, So fast the crests went down.
As the tall white devil of the Plague Moves out of Asian skies,With his foot on a waste of cities And his head in a cloud of flies;
Or purple and peacock skies grow dark With a moving locust-tower;Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,Like hell's red banners beat and fly,When death comes out of Araby, Was Eldred in his hour.
But while he moved like a massacre He murmured as in sleep,And his words were all of low hedges And little fields and sheep.
Even as he strode like a pestilence, That strides from Rhine to Rome,
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