Classic Poem

TORQUEMADA .

I ROSE in bed, repeated like a child
The dear Lord's prayer; a candle lit, and read
The Sermon on the Mount, until my head
Sank on the pillow; then too soon beguiled
By the same fever-sleep, again the wild
Horror of death-by-fire, eternally
Prolonged, possessed my senses, and the cry
Rang up, the shrieks returned; around me coiled
That vision of the pit, the pit of doom,
Where two still living corpses now consume,
Struggling together with their talons thrust
Into each others eye-holes filled with dust.
'Twas Torquemada in the maddening gloom,
And Dominic, struggling in their murderous lust.