| |
| O DEATH! with what an eye of desperate lust, | |
| From out thy emptied vaults, thou then didst look | |
| After the risen multitudes of all | |
| Mankind! Ah! thou hadst been the terror long, | |
| And murderer, of all of woman born. | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 parchèd throat; | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| Pleased well thy taste, and, while the mother wept, | |
| Bereaved by thee, lonely and waste in woe, | |
| Thy ever-grinding jaws devoured her too! | |
| Each son of Adam’s family beheld, | |
| Where’er he turned, whatever path of life | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| 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: | 35 |
| 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 applause. | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| And revelry, thy shadowy hand was seen | |
| Writing thy name of—Death! Vile worm! that gnawed | |
| The root of all his happiness terrene, the gall | |
| Of all his sweet, the thorn of every rose | |
| Of earthly bloom, cloud of his noonday sky, | 60 |
| Frost of his spring, sigh of his loudest laugh, | |
| Dark spot on every form of loveliness, | |
| Rank smell among his rarest spiceries, | |
| Harsh dissonance of all his harmony, | |
| Reserve of every promise, and the If | 65 |
| Of all to-morrows!—now, beyond thy vale, | |
| Stood all the ransomed multitude of men, | |
| Immortal all; and in their vision saw | |
| Thy visage grim no more. Great payment day! | |
| Of all thou ever conquered, none was left | 70 |
| In thy unpeopled realms, so populous once. * * * * * | |
| Vain was resistance, and to follow vain. | |
| In thy unveilèd caves and solitudes | |
| Of dark and dismal emptiness, thou satst, | |
| Rolling thy hollow eyes, disabled thing! | 75 |
| Helpless, despised, unpitied, and unfeared, | |
| Like some fallen tyrant, chained in sight of all | |
| Thy people; from thee dropped thy pointless dart; | |
| Thy terrors withered all; thy ministers, | |
| Annihilated, fell before thy face! | 80 |
| And on thy maw eternal hunger seized. | |
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