Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe, O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear! To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go, Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd, All effortless thou leave Life's common-weal A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PROMISE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SPECIAL PLEADING by SIDNEY LANIER THE BEAST OF BURDEN by MARIANNE MOORE THE INVITATION (TO TOM HUGHES) by CHARLES KINGSLEY EPITAPHS by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH A CHARACTER OF HIS FRIEND, W.B. ESQ by PHILIP AYRES |