| |
| DWELLER in yon dungeon dark, | |
| Hangman of creation! mark, | |
| Who in widow-weeds appears, | |
| Laden with unhonour’d years, | |
| Noosing with care a bursting purse, | 5 |
| Baited with many a deadly curse? | |
| |
STROPHE
View the wither’d Beldam’s face; | |
| Can thy keen inspection trace | |
| Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace? | |
| Note that eye, ’tis rheum o’erflows; | 10 |
| Pity’s flood there never rose, | |
| See these hands ne’er stretched to save, | |
| Hands that took, but never gave: | |
| Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest, | |
| Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest, | 15 |
| She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest! | |
| |
ANTISTROPHE
Plunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes, | |
| (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends;) | |
| Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends? | |
| No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies; | 20 |
| ’Tis thy trusty quondam Mate, | |
| Doom’d to share thy fiery fate; | |
| She, tardy, hell-ward plies. | |
| |
EPODE
And are they of no more avail, | |
| Ten thousand glittering pounds a-year? | 25 |
| In other worlds can Mammon fail, | |
| Omnipotent as he is here! | |
| |
| O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier, | |
| While down the wretched Vital Part is driven! | |
| The cave-lodged Beggar,with a conscience clear, | 30 |
| Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heaven. | |
| |
