Mark, how in hellish wantonness, he calls Yon trembling innocent—the sight appals! The weeping sacrifice, with nervless pace, Obeys the mandate—while his infant face The butcher seizing, with infernal hold, Fastens his gripe in lacerating fold; In his torn mouth the wounded passage finds, And thro' the mangled cheeks his fingers winds! Convolv'd in pangs, that rev'rend form survey Beneath his country's wars and commerce grey, Now writhes his tortur'd frame! The scourges ply— And from the lash the quiv'ring morsels fly. Invention next, from her exhaustless stores, O'er the bare bones the venom'd lotion pours, Whose acrid salts in searching conflict dart, With pungent anguish bathing ev'ry, smart: The tortur'd fibres their last feeling strain, And life just vibrates on the strings of pain! Nor this the close: between his toothless jaws The furious monster the thwart iron draws— The poor relief to wail his fate deny'd, And the hot gore sent down in choaking tide, Unnaturally return'd with horrid force, Dire meal! again to throb its wasted course! But while new tortures raise the piercing cry, And wound with dreadful sight the wearied eye, Th' avenging hour arrives—in dreadful din The troops of wan _Disease_ their march begin. With fervid eye they trace the fatal road Their agent _Cruelty_ had mark'd with blood. Now droops the head in faint dejection hung, Now raging thirst enflames the dry-parch'd tongue; In yellow films the rayless eye is set, With chilling dews the loaded brow is wet; Fierce thro' the burning roads of purple life, The acrid venoms rush with mortal strife, Their poisons thro' th' intestine mazes bear, The viscous linings from their channels tear; Pour with corroding deluge thro' the frame, And whelm the vitals in the liquid flame. Th' infected air, upon her loaded wings, Thro' the warm ship the green contagion brings. Strew'd o'er the filthy deck, the fever'd lie, And for cool moisture raise the feeble cry; The pitying messmate brings the cheering draught, And, in the pious act, the venom'd shaft, Repays the charity with barb ingrate, And whelms the soother in the kindred fate.