86
Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!
And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke!
The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!
The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!
The shriek that from the distant battle broke!
The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host
Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke
To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd,
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!
Some mighty gulf of separation past,
I seemed transported to another world:—
A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
The impatient mariner the sail unfurl'd,
And, whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was for ever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
And oft I thought (my fancy was so strong)
That I at last a resting-place had found;
"Here will I dwell," said I, "my whole life long,
Roaming the illimitable waters round:
Here will I live:—of every friend disown'd,
