Classic Poem

There in the quiet of the middle night
Deep slumbered these, when sudden on them fell
A herd of elephants, thirsting to drink;
In rut, the mada oozing from their heads;
And when those great beasts spied the caravan
And smelled the tame cows of their kind, they rushed
Headlong and mad with must, o'erwhelming all,
In onset vast and irresistible.

As when from some tall peak into the plain
Thunder and smoke and crash the rolling rocks,
Through splintered stems and thorns so breaking a way,
On swept the herd to where, beside the pool,
Those sleepers lay, and trampled them to earth,
Half risen, helpless, shrieking in the dark
“Haha! the elephants.” Of those unslain,
Some in the thickets sought a shelter; some,
Yet dazed with sleep, stood panic-stricken, mute;
Till, here with tusks and there with trunks, the beasts
Gored them and battered them and trod them flat
Under their monstrous feet. Then might be seen
Camels with camel-drivers perishing,
And men flying in fear who struck at men;
Terror and death and clamor everywhere:
While some, despairing, cast themselves to earth;
And some, in fleeing, fell and died; and some
Climbed to the tree-tops. Thus on every side
Scattered and ruined was that caravan,
Cattle and merchants, by the herd assailed.