When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun, And draws the copious steam; from swampy fens, Where putrefaction into life ferments, And breathes destructive myriads; or from woods, Impenetrable shades, recesses foul, In vapors rank and blue corruption wrapp'd, Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot Has ever dar'd to pierce--then, wasteful, forth Walks the dire power of pestilent disease. A thousand hideous fiends her course attend, Sick nature blasting, and a heartless woe, And feeble desolation, casting down The towering hopes and all the pride of man. Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm; Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form, The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye No more with ardor bright; you heard the groans Of agonizing ships, from shore to shore; Heard, nightly plung'd amid the sullen waves, The frequent corse--while on each other fix'd, In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed, Silent, to ask, whom fate would next demand. [Illustration: Pouring forth pestilence] [Illustration: Stricken with plague] What need I mention those inclement skies Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, plague, The fiercest child of Nemesis divine, Descends? From Ethiopia's poison'd woods, From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields With locust-armies putrefying heap'd, This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage The brutes escape. Man is her destin'd prey, Intemperate man! and o'er his guilty domes She draws a close incumbent cloud of death; Uninterrupted by the living winds, Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stain'd With many a mixture by the sun, suffus'd, Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then, Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy, And hush'd the clamor of the busy world. Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad. Into the worst of deserts sudden turn'd The cheerful haunt of men--unless escap'd From the doom'd house, where matchless horror reigns, Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch, With frenzy wild, breaks loose, and loud to Heaven Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns, Inhuman and unwise. The sullen door, Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge Fearing to turn, abhors society. Dependents, friends, relations, Love himself, Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie, The sweet engagement of the feeling heart. But vain their selfish care: the circling sky, The wide enlivening air is full of fate; And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd. Thus o'er the prostrate city black despair