Poems (Southey)/Volume 1/Sonnet 1 (Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain)
< Poems (Southey) | Volume 1
For works with similar titles, see Sonnet.
SONNET I.
Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Niger's tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! what dæmon prompts to rear
The arm of Slaughter? on your Savage shore
Can Hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,
With laurels water'd by the widow's tear
Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!
And like the desolating whirlwind's sweep,
Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;
For the pale fiend, cold hearted Commerce there
Breathes his gold gender'd-pestilence afar,
And calls, to share the prey, his kindred Daemon War.
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Niger's tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! what dæmon prompts to rear
The arm of Slaughter? on your Savage shore
Can Hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,
With laurels water'd by the widow's tear
Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!
And like the desolating whirlwind's sweep,
Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;
For the pale fiend, cold hearted Commerce there
Breathes his gold gender'd-pestilence afar,
And calls, to share the prey, his kindred Daemon War.