| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | Written under the Influence of Delirium | | By William Cowper (1731–1800) |
| | | HATRED and vengeance,—my eternal portion | |
| Scarce can endure delay of execution,— | |
| Wait with impatient readiness to seize my | |
| Soul in a moment. | |
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| Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was, | 5 |
| Who for a few pence sold his holy Master! | |
| Twice-betrayed Jesus me, the last delinquent, | |
| Deems the profanest. | |
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| Man disavows, and Deity disowns me, | |
| Hell might afford my miseries a shelter; | 10 |
| Therefore, Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all | |
| Bolted against me. | |
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| Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers; | |
| Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors, | |
| I’m called, if vanquished! to receive a sentence | 15 |
| Worse than Abiram’s. | |
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| Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice | |
| Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong; | |
| I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am | |
| Buried above ground. | 20 | | | |
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