Classic Poem

I SLAM is living! Follow me,
God's champion against the world!
A new crusade time shall not see;
But lo, our battle-flag unfurled!

The pestilence shall stalk about,
And fleet-winged Azrael shrilly sing;
The heavens shall hang their meteors out
And streams of blood in deserts spring.

Shetan's chief slave shall lead a host;
And Gog and Magog issue forth:
A grisly smoke, hell's swartest boast,
Shall coil about the stifled earth.

God's wrath burns like a desert when
Harmattan blows: to quench its heat
From adamantine hearts of men
Our scimitars a fount shall beat.

Our counsel shall be swift and wise;
Our motion shall be mystery;
Death-shafts shall dart forth of our eyes
From victory to victory.

Then shall the great Archangel blow
The trump of doom, and at the sound
The shrivelled rivers cease to flow,
And ocean's bed be naked ground.

A second blast; and like a light
Blown by a wind the sun shall stream
And wither out; and in that night
The heavens shall vanish as a dream.

A spectral silence, felt, unknown,
Shall haunt the weltering chaos, till,
With bloodless cheeks, and trembling tone,
Wet eyes, sad heart, and feeble will,

The angel faintly blow again:
Yet Adam in his grave shall hear;
The deepest dead shall rise amain,
And Hell and Paradise appear.

The terrors of the dread abyss,
The shrieking throngs by demons lashed
Over the brink with fiery hiss,
We shall behold, awed, unabashed,

A moment. Then our happy feet
Along the keen and star-bright thread,
Al-sirat's filmy bridge shall fleet;
And sure shall be our feathery tread.

Mohammed beckons at the gate!
Up, follow me in ways he trod!
The languid, green-robed houris wait!
Hear, and obey the word of God.