Classic Poem

And little, in truth, boots it ringing the bell.
For the fire is loose on its way one may tell
By the hot simmering whispers and humming up there
In the oak-beams and rafters. Now one of the Squires
His elbow hath thrust thro' the half-smoulder'd door—
Such a hole as some rat for his brown wife might bore—
And straightway in snaky, white, wavering spires
The thin smoke twirls thro', and spreads eddying in gyres,
Here and there toucht with vanishing tints from the glare
That has swathed in its rose-light the sharp turret stair.
Soon the door ruin'd thro': and in tumbled a cloud
Of black vapour. And first 'twas all blackness, and then
The quick forkèd fires leapt out from their shroud
In the blackness: and thro' it rush'd in the arm'd men
From the courtyard. And then there was flying and fighting,
And praying and cursing—confusion confounded.
Each man, at wild hazard, thro' smoke ramparts smiting,
Has struck … is it friend? is it foe? Who is wounded?