Gods and Devils all my heroes,
Hell and Heaven each my tryst,
With my claws upon the pulsing,
Great and brawny wrist
Of Earth,
O Mirth!
To know her fears,
To see her tears,
To feel her quaking,
To force her waking;
When Ignorance, my son,
Stalks through the land
And Fear, my fair one,
Holds by either hand! I am the Dragon who sits on high,
Behind a thunder cloud.
I send far off and beckon nigh
And wrap the world in gloomy shroud. I clutch with vicious claws--O glee!
I am the Dragon of earth and sea!
When cities burn and ships go down,
Ho! There am I in hellish gown.
I put a finger to my mouth
And whistle, when the earth has drouth.
If men will fight,
For wrong or right,
It matters not which it may be,
I clap them on to kill or flee.
I send the missionaries out
The foreign wars to bring about:
Hell is my seething caldron-pot
And misery my garden plot. I am the Dragon!
Ho! Ho, old world!
Wag on, content am I.