My feelings had been so agitated by this discourse that my imagination was thoroughly rouzed. My former ideas, concerning the enormous vices of war, had not only been revived but increased; and, though I began with debating the question, I soon ceased to oppose: so that my thoughts were rather busied in filling up the picture, and collecting all its horrors, than in apologizing for or denying their existence. This was the temper of mind in which Mr. Evelyn, attending to his own concerns, left me for a short time; and my heart was so agonized by the recollection that this was a system to which men were still devoted, and of which they were still in the headlong and hot pursuit, that I then immediately, and perhaps with less effort than I ever made on a similar occasion, produced the following poem: THE HERO All hail to the hero whom victory leads, Triumphant, from fields of renown! From kingdoms left barren! from plains drench'd in blood! And the sacking of many a fair town! His gore-dripping sword shall hang high in the hall; Revered for the havoc it spread! For the deaths it has dealt! for the terrors it struck! And the torrents of blood it has shed! His banners in haughty procession shall ride, On Jehovah's proud altars unfurl'd! While anthems and priests waft to heaven his praise, For the slaughter and wreck of a world! Though widows and orphans together shall crowd, To gaze as at heaven's dread rod, And mutter their curses, and mingle their tears, Invoking the vengeance of God: Though, while bloated Revelry roars at his board, Where surfeiting hecatombs fume, Desolation and Famine shall howl, and old Earth Her skeleton hordes shall intomb: All ghastly and mangled, from fields where they fell, With horrible groanings and cries, What though, when he slumbers, the dead from their graves In dread visitation shall rise: Yet he among heroes exalted shall sit; And slaves to his splendor shall bend; And senates shall echo his virtues; and kings Shall own him their saviour, and friend! Then hail to the hero whom victory leads, Triumphant, from fields of renown! From kingdoms left barren! from plains drench'd in blood! And the sacking of many a fair town! I was too full of my subject, and poet like too much delighted with the verses I had so suddenly produced, not to shew them immediately to Mr. Evelyn.