HOULD we aright our woeful history
And mark the sad disasters of our race;
How Adam from his lofty station fell,
We'll find that he has made us heirs of hell;
And since that time through generations all,
We feel the sad productions of the fall.
Grim death in triumph now begins to reign,
In righteous Abel by a brother slain."
O direful deed! and sin did strike the blow;
Destructive stroke, sad harbinger of woe;
The bane of man, the sad effects of ill
That doth with grief the human bosom fill.
All nature changed from peace to endless war,
And dreadful howlings echo from afar :
Death rides in triumph o'er his dark domains,
And spreads destruction through the peaceful
While base ambition human bosoms fili,
Infernal darkness overclouds the will.
O dreadful thought! where's now the har
That once subsisted?all in ruins lie
The cheerful birds on every nodding spray,
That sung melodious notes at break of day,
May hang their drooping heads, or mournful
May slowly warble through their tuneful throats.
In every shady grove the cooing dove
That used to cheer its mate with songs of love,
May cower its wings and sing in mournful
strain,
And send the doleful tidings o'er the plain :
That beasts of forests struck with terror round,
May join with doleful roar the mournful sound,
For changed is nature, now the hostile plain,
Must soon be strewed-alas with heaps of slain
The elements through sin now seem to jar
In one destructive and continued war.
Death now appears to man with varied fo
form,
Sometimes triumphing on the furious storm;
At other times infectious vapours fly,
In calms serene do many thousands die;
And poisonous humours through our veins do
Nursed in our frame the human body kill!
No tongue, nor pen, can here enumerate
The causes that may fix our dying state;
See but the fruit of sin, in ancient day,
The dreadful deluge swept a world away:
And since that time, we learn from sacred page,
That base ambition's ruined every age:
Distressful cries of misery from afar,
Proclaim the horrors of destructive war;
Whose sad effects no mortal can pourtray,
When hostile nations meet in dread array!
Line face to line, each martially displays
Their glistering arms which seem a mighty blaze.
The trumpet's clangour loud assails the ear,-
A bustling stir begins from front to rear:
Winged full in death the thundering cannons
And numbers fall, alas, to rise no more!
While high in clouds the smoky pillars rise,
Like mighty mountains towering to the skies;
Along the sanguine field, where hullets fly,
Fragments of men, in dread disorder lie;
Some sunk already in the jaws of death,
And others roll in blood and gasp for breath:
While some so mangled that they cannot rise,
Writhing in pain, do utter forth their cries!
Extorted cries, from agonizing pain,
Sad spoils of death are strewed along the plain.
Still, still the battle rages, thunders roar,
Thick fly the shafts of death all drenched in
(The grizzly king, triumphant grins applause, Unvanquished still, and steady to his cause.)
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