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A POEM.
21

Wades deep in blood new-spilt; yet for to-morrow
Shares out new work of great uncommon daring,
And inly pines till the dread blow is struck.

But hold—I've gone too far; too much discover'd
My father's nakedness, and nature's shame.
Here let me pause, and drop an honest tear,
One burst of filial duty and condolence,
O'er all those ample deserts death hath spread,
This chaos of mankind.—O great man-eater;
Whose ev'ry day is Carnival, not fated yet!
Unheard of epicure! without a fellow!
The veriest gluttons do not always cram;
Some intervals of abstinence are sought
To edge the appetite: Thou seekest none.
Methinks the countless swarms thou hast devour'd,
And thousands that each hour thou gobblest up:
This, less than this, might gorge thee to the full.
But ah! rapacious still, thou gap'st for more:
Like one, whole days defrauded of hsi meals.
On whom lank hunger lays her skinny hand,
And whets to keenest eagerness his cravings.
(As if diseases, massacres, and poison,
Famine and war, were not thy caterers.)

But know, that thou must render up thy dead,
And with high int'rest too.—They are not thine;
But only in thy keeping for a season,
Till the great promis'd day of restitution;
When loud diffusive found from brazen trump
Of strong lung'd cherub, shall alarm thy captives,
And rouse the long, long sleepers into life,
Day-light, and liberty—
Then must thy gates fly open, and reveal
The mines that lay long forming under ground,
In their dark cells immur'd; but now full ripe,
And pure as silver from the crucible,
That twice has stood the torture of the fire