The Apparition

Battle-Pieces and Others Aspects of War

Convulsions came; and, where the fieldLong slept in pastoral green,A goblin-mountain was upheaved(Sure the scared sense was all deceived),Marl-glen and slag-ravine.

The unreserve of Ill was there,The clinkers in her last retreat;But, ere the eye could take it in,Or mind could comprehension win,It sunk!-and at our feet.

So, then, Solidity’s a crust-The core of fire below;All may go well for many a year,But who can think without a fearOf horrors that happen so?

l. 7: clinkers. The powder and rough hard pieces that remain after coal has been burned, or a mass of a mass of vitrified material ejected from a volcano.