nor Beauty render vain
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain -
Nor Fortune change - Pride raise
Nor Virtue teach austerity -
till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,
But wanting one sweet weakness
Too shocked at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.
But to the theme:
:-now laid aside too long,
The baleful burden of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake;
If early habits- those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,
And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,
To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints;
While mingling truth with falesehood, sneers with smiles,
A thread of candor with a web of wiles;
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming;
A lip of lies a face formed to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel;
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment — and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colors in that soul or face) —
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:
Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged -
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade,
This female dogstar of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.
Oh! wretch without a tear
Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought —
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
May the strong curse of crushed affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black as thy will for others would create:
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust,
Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,
The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread! Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with
Look on thine earthly victims- - and despair!
Down to the dust! and as, thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear-
Thy name-thy human name to every eye
The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers
And festering in the infamy of years.
'Tis done! -I saw it in my dreams;
No more with Hope the future beams;
My days of happiness are few:
Chilled by misfortune's wintry blast,
My dawn of life is overcast ;
Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu :·
Would I could add Remembrance too.
FATHER of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Father of Light, on thee I call!
Thou see'st my soul is dark within; Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, Avert from me the death of sin.
No shrine I seek to sects unknown;
Oh point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread omnipotence I own;
Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.
Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,
Let superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.
Shall man confine his Maker's sway
To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
Thy temple is the face of day;
Earth, ocean, heaven thy boundless throne.
Shall man condemn his race to hell
Unless they bend in pompous form:
Tell us that all, for one who fell,
Must perish in the mingling storm?
Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire?
Shall these, by creeds they can't expound,
Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
Shall reptiles grovelling on the ground,
Their great Creator's purpose know?
Shall those, who live for self alone,
Whose years float on in daily crime-
Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,
And live beyond the bounds of Time?
Father! no prophet's laws I seek, –
Thy laws in Nature's works appear;
I own myself corrupt and weak,
Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear!
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star Through trackless realms of ether's space; Who calm'st the elemental war,
Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:
Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thou wilt, can take me hence,
Ah! while I tread this earthly sphere,
Extend to me thy wide defence.
• To Thee, my God, to Thee I call!
Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.
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