Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/342

Thou wast the fiend, and thou alone,
That stood'st by Beaufort's mitred head,
With upright hair and visage ghastly pale :
Thy terrors shook his dying bed,
Past crimes and blood his sinking heart assail,
His hands are clasped, hark to that hollow groan !
See how his glazed, dim eye-balls wildly roll,
'Tis not dissolving Nature's pains ; that pang is of the so

Where guilty souls are doomed to dwell,
T is thou that mak'st their fiercest hell,
The vulture thou that on their liver feeds,
As rise to view their past unhallowed deeds ;
With thee condemned to stay,
Till time has rolled away
Long aeras of uncounted years,
And every stain is washed in soft repentant tears.

Servant of God but unbeloved proceed,
For thou must live and ply thy scorpion scourge ;