None could escape thee! In thy dungeon-house, Where darkness dwelt, and putrid loathsomeness, And fearful silence, villanously still,
And all of horrible and deadly name,
Thou satst, from age to age, insatiate,
And drank the blood of men, and gorged their flesh,
And with thy iron teeth didst grind their bones
To powder, treading out, beneath thy feet,
Their very names and memories! The blood
Of nations could not slake thy parched throat.
No bribe could buy thy favour for an hour,
Or mitigate thy ever cruel rage
For human prey. Gold, beauty, virtue, youth,
Even helpless, swaddled innocency, failed
To soften thy heart of stone! the infant's blood
Pleased well thy taste, and, while the mother wept,
Bereaved by thee, lonely and waste in wo,
Thy ever-grinding jaws devoured her too.
Each son of Adam's family beheld, Where'er he turned, whatever path of life He trode, thy goblin form before him stand, Like trusty old assassin, in his aim
Steady and sure as eye of destiny,
With scythe, and dart, and strength invincible,
Equipped, and ever menacing his life.
He turned aside, he drowned himself in sleep,
In wine, in pleasure; travelled, voyaged, sought
Receipts for health from all he met; betook
To business, speculate, retired; returned
Again to active life, again retired;
Returned, retired again; prepared to die,
Talked of thy nothingness, conversed of life
To come, laughed at his fears, filled up the cup,
Drank deep, refrained; filled up, refrained again;
Planned, built him round with splendour, won ap-
plause,
Made large alliances with men and things,
Read deep in science and philosophy,
To fortify his soul; heard lectures prove
The present ill, and future good; observed
His pulse beat regular, extended hope;
Thought, dissipated thought, and thought again;
Indulged, abstained, and tried a thousand schemes,
To ward thy blow, or hide thee from his eye;
But still thy gloomy terrors, dipped in sin,
Before him frowned, and withered all his joy.
Still, feared and hated thing! thy ghostly shape
Stood in his avenues of fairest hope;
Unmannerly and uninvited, crept
Into his haunts of most select delight.
Still, on his halls of mirth, and banqueting,
And revelry, thy shadowy hand was seen
Writing thy name of Death! Vile worm, that
The root of all his happiness terrene, the gall
Of all his sweet, the thorn of every rose
Of earthly bloom, cloud of his noon day sky,
Frost of his spring, sigh of his loudest laugh,
Dark spot on every form of loveliness,
Rank smell amidst his rarest spiceries,
Harsh dissonance of all his harmony,
Reserve of every promise, and the if
Of all to-morrows!-now, beyond thy vale,
Stood all the ransomed multitude of men,
Immortal all: and, in their visions, saw
Thy visage grin no more. Great payment day!
Of all thou ever conquered, none was left
In thy unpeopled realms, so populous once.
He, at whose girdle hang the keys of death
And life, not bought but with the blood of Him
Who wears, the eternal Son of God, that morn,
Dispelled the cloud that sat so long, so thick,
So heavy o'er thy vale; opened all thy doors,
Unopened before; and set thy prisoners free.
Vain was resistance, and to follow vain.
In thy unveiled caves, and solitudes
Of dark and dismal emptiness, thou satst,
Rolling thy hollow eyes, disabled thing!
Helpless, despised, unpitied, and unfeared,
Like some fallen tyrant, chained in sight of all
The people; from thee dropped thy pointless dart,
Thy terrors withered all, thy ministers,
Annihilated, fell before thy face,
And on thy maw eternal hunger seized.
Nor yet, sad monster! wast thou left alone : In thy dark dens some phantoms still remained; Ambition, Vanity, and earthly Fame, Swollen Ostentation, meagre Avarice, Mad Superstition, smooth Hypocrisy, And Bigotry intolerant, and Fraud, And wilful Ignorance, and sullen Pride, Hot Controversy, and the subtile ghost Of vain Philosophy, and worldly Hope, And sweet-lipped, hollow-hearted Flattery. All these, great personages once on earth, And not unfollowed, nor unpraised, were left, Thy ever unredeemed, and with thee driven To Erebus, through whose uncheered wastes,
Thou mayst chase them, with thy broken scythe Fetching vain strokes, to all eternity,
Unsatisfied, as men who, in the days
Of Time, their unsubstantial forms pursued.
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