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There is death where the sword of his rider is gleaming.
Woe to the lands where that red steed is flying!
There tyrants are warring, and heroes are dying.
V.
Oh! the golden-hair'd children reck nought but their playing,
Thro' the rich fields of corn with their young mothers straying;
And the strong-hearted men, with their muscles of iron,
What reck they of ills that their pathway environ?
There's a tramp like a knell—a cold shadow gloometh—
Woe! 'tis the black steed of Famine that cometh.
VI.
At the breath of its rider the green earth is blasted,
And childhood's frail form droops down pallid, and wasted;
The soft sunny hair falleth dank on the arm
Of the mother, whose love shields no longer from harm.
For strength is scarce left her to weep o'er the dying,
Ere dead by the loved one the mother is lying.
VII.
But can we only weep, when above us thus lour
The death-bearing wings of the angels of power;
When around are the arrows of pestilence flying—
Around, the pale heaps of the famine-struck lying