Why dire convulsions rend,
And teeming horrors wreck th' astonish'd sight?
Why shrinks the trembling soul,
Why with amazement full
Pines at thy rule, and sickens at thy sway?
Why low'r the thunder of thy brow,
Why livid angers glow,
Mistaken phantom, say?
Far hence exert thy awful reign,
Where tutelary shrines and solemn busts
Inclose the hallow'd dust:
Where feeble tapers shed a gloomy ray,
And statues pity feign;
Where pale-ey'd griefs their wasting vigils keep,
There brood with sullen state, and nod with downy sleep.
Advance ye lurid ministers of death!
And swell the annals of her reign:
Crack every nerve, sluice every vein;
And choak the avenues of breath.
Freeze, freeze, ye purple tides!
Or scorch with seering flames, Æra's nature flows in tepid streams,
And life's meanders glide.
Let keen despair her icy progress make,
And slacken'd nerves their talk forsake;
Years damp the vital fire.
Yawn all ye horrors of the flood;
And curl your swelling surges higher.
Survey the road!
Where desolating storms, and vengeful fates,
The gawdy scene deface;