Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Locusts
By Robert Southey (17741843)(From Thalaba the Destroyer, Book III)
T
Of locusts, from the desolated fields
Of Syria, winged their way.
“Lo! how created things
Obey the written doom.”
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of some broad river, headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit; or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumnal storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.
Onward they came, the winds impelled them on,
Their work was done, their path of ruin past,
Their graves were ready in the wilderness.