Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HORROR, by ROBERT SOUTHEY



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TO HORROR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dark horror, hear my call!
Last Line: I will behold and smile by mercy's side.
Subject(s): Colonialism; England; Injustice; Missions & Missionaries; Racism; Slavery; Terror; Vengeance; English; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry; Serfs


DARK Horror, hear my call!
Stern genius hear from thy retreat
On some old sepulchre's mosscankered seat
Beneath the abbey's ivied wall
That trembles o'er its shade;
Where wrapt in midnight gloom, alone,
Thou lovest to lie and hear
The roar of waters near,
And listen to the deep dull groan
Of some perturbed sprite
Borne fitful on the heavy gales of night.

Or whether o'er some wide waste hill
Thou markest the traveller stray,
Bewildered on his lonely way.
When, loud and keen and chill,
The evening winds of winter blow,
Drifting deep the dismal snow.

Or if thou followest now on Greenland's shore,
With all thy terrors, on the lonely way
Of some wrecked mariner, when to the roar
Of herded bears, the floating ice-hills round
Pour their deep echoing sound,
And by the dim drear boreal light
Givest half his dangers to the wretch's sight.

Or if thy fury form,
When o'er the midnight deep
The dark-winged tempests sweep,
Watches from some high cliff the increasing storm,
Listening with strange delight,
As the black billows to the thunder rave
When by the lightning's light
Thou seest the tall ship sink beneath the wave.

Dark Horror! bear me where the field of fight
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the moon's faint beam,
On many a carcase shine the dews of night,
And a dead silence stills the vale
Save when at times is heard the glutted raven's scream.

Where some wrecked army from the conqueror's might
Speed their disastrous flight,
With thee, fierce genius! let me trace their way,
And hear at times the deep heart-groan
Of some poor sufferer left to die alone,
His sore wounds smarting with the winds of night;
And we will pause, where, on the wild,
The mother to her frozen breast,
On the heaped snows reclining clasps her child,
And with him sleeps, chilled to eternal rest!

Black Horror! speed we to the bed of death,
Where he whose murderous power afar
Blasts with the myriad plagues of war,
Struggles with his last breath;
Then to his wildly-starting eyes
The phantoms of the murdered rise;
Then on his phrensied ear
Their groans for vengeance and the demon's yell
In one heart-maddening chorus swell.
Cold on his brow convulsing stands the dew,
And night eternal darkens on his view.

Horror! I call thee yet once more!
Bear me to that accursed shore
Where round the stake the impaled negro writhes.
Assume thy sacred terrors then! dispense
The blasting gales of pestilence!
Arouse the race of Afric! holy power,
Lead them to vengeance! and in that dread hour
When ruin rages wide,
I will behold and smile by Mercy's side.





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