This page has been validated.
20
JOHN LEYDEN.


Skull-chaplet-wearer! whom the blood
Of man delights a thousand years,
Than whom no face, by land or flood,
More stern and pitiless appears,
Thine is the cup of human tears.
For pomp of human sacrifice
Cannot the cruel blood suffice
Of tigers, which thine island rears?

Not all blue Ganga's mountain-flood.
That rolls so proudly round thy fane.
Shall cleanse the tinge of human blood,
Nor wash dark Sagur's impious stain
The sailor, journeying on the main,
Shall view from far the dreary isle,
And curse the ruins of the pile
Where Mercy ever sued in vain.