Page:Poems By Chauncy Hare Townshend.djvu/94

Let not our mirth the harmless thunder chase,
But rather to our chorus growl the base,"
Loud grew the song, when thro' the lurid air
Ten thousand lightnings seem'd at once to glare.
In horrid pomp the meteor pass'd on high,
And drew a train of radiance thro' the sky;
Where glimmering candles shed their feeble rays,
Pour'd o'er the room its full o'erpowering blaze,
Then burst in tumult, dangerously near,
And shook the house, and shook each heart with fear.
The dreadful portent sober'd ev'n the drunk,
The sounds of riot lessen'd, waver'd, sunk.
Each on the other gaz'd, and paler grew,
To see each face o'erspread with sulph'rous blue.
When William Field. as starting from a dream,
Broke the dread silence with a piercing scream;
Fix'd were his eyes, his frame disorder'd shook,
"There, there they stand! (he cried) Look yonder, look!"
"Who? Who?" They all exclaim'd in accents wild:
"What, see you not ?—My murder'd wife and child!
"Fiends drag me down! O torture me no more!"
He fell, he writh'd convulsive on the floor,
And kind Oblivion from his troubled soul
Awhile the sense of guilt and anguish stole.
Life to his frame return'd, but ne'er again,
Life of the soul, did Reason nerve his brain: