| |
| DAUGHTER of Chaos’ doting years, | |
| Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears, | |
| Whether thy airy, insubstantial shade | |
| (The rights of sepulture now duly paid) | |
| Spread abroad its hideous form | 5 |
| On the roaring civil storm, | |
| Deafening din and warring rage | |
| Factions wild with factions wage; | |
| Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound, | |
| Among the demons of the earth, | 10 |
| With groans that make the mountains shake, | |
| Thou mourn thy ill-starr’d, blighted birth; | |
| Or in the uncreated Void, | |
| Where seeds of future being fight, | |
| With lessen’d step thou wander wide, | 15 |
| To greet thy Mother—Ancient Night. | |
| And as each jarring, monster-mass is past, | |
| Fond recollect what once thou wast: | |
| In manner due, beneath this sacred oak, | |
| Hear, Spirit, hear! thy presence I invoke! | 20 |
| By a Monarch’s heaven-struck fate, | |
| By a disunited State, | |
| By a generous Prince’s wrongs. | |
| By a Senate’s strife of tongues, | |
| By a Premier’s sullen pride, | 25 |
| Louring on the changing tide; | |
| By dread Thurlow’s powers to awe | |
| Rhetoric, blasphemy and law; | |
| By the turbulent ocean— | |
| A Nation’s commotion, | 30 |
| By the harlot-caresses | |
| Of borough addresses, | |
| By days few and evil, | |
| (Thy portion, poor devil!) | |
| By Power, Wealth, and Show, | 35 |
| (The Gods by men adored,) | |
| By nameless Poverty, | |
| (Their hell abhorred,) | |
| By all they hope, by all they fear, | |
| Hear! and appear! | 40 |
| |
| Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power! | |
| Nor, grim with chained defiance, lour: | |
| No Babel-structure would I build | |
| Where, order exil’d from his native sway, | |
| Confusion may the REGENT-sceptre wield, | 45 |
| While all would rule and none obey: | |
| Go, to the world of man relate | |
| The story of thy sad, eventful fate; | |
| And call presumptuous Hope to hear | |
| And bid him check his blind career; | 50 |
| And tell the sore-prest sons of Care, | |
| Never, never to despair! | |
| Paint Charles’ speed on wings of fire, | |
| The object of his fond desire, | |
| Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand: | 55 |
| Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band; | |
| Mark how they lift the joy-exulting voice, | |
| And how their num’rous creditors rejoice; | |
| But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise, | |
| Cry CONVALESCENCE! and the vision flies. | 60 |
| Then next pourtray a dark’ning twilight gloom, | |
| Eclipsing sad a gay, rejoicing morn, | |
| While proud Ambition to th’ untimely tomb | |
| By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne: | |
| Paint ruin, in the shape of high D[undas] | 65 |
| Gaping with giddy terror o’er the brow; | |
| In vain he struggles, the fates behind him press, | |
| And clam’rous hell yawns for her prey below: | |
| How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies! | |
| And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise! | 70 |
| Again pronounce the powerful word; | |
| See Day, triumphant from the night, restored. | |
| |
| Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men! | |
| (Thus ends thy moral tale,) | |
| Your darkest terrors may be vain, | 75 |
| Your brightest hopes may fail. | |
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