Entire mankind; and for their sakes defacing A whole creation's beauty with rude hands; Blasting the foodful grain, the loaded branches; And marking all along its way with ruin. 620 Accursed thing!--Oh! where shall fancy find A proper name to call thee by, expressive Of all thy horrors?--Pregnant womb of ills! Of tempers so transcendantly malign, That toads and serpents of most deadly kind Compared to thee are harmless.--Sicknesses Of every size and symptom, racking pains, And bluest plagues, are thine.--See how the fiend Profusely scatters the contagion round! Whilst deep-mouth'd slaughter, bellowing at her heels, 630 Wades deep in blood new-spilt; yet for to-morrow Shapes out new work of great uncommon daring, And inly pines till the dread blow is struck. But, hold! I've gone too far; too much discover'd My father's nakedness, and nature's shame. Here let me pause, and drop an honest tear, One burst of filial duty and condolence, O'er all those ample deserts Death hath spread, This chaos of mankind.--O great man-eater! Whose every day is carnival, not sated yet! 640 Unheard-of epicure, without a fellow! The veriest gluttons do not always cram; Some intervals of abstinence are sought To edge the appetite: Thou seekest none. Methinks the countless swarms thou hast devour'd, And thousands at each hour thou gobblest up, This, less than this, might gorge thee to the full! But, ah! rapacious still, thou gap'st for more: Like one, whole days defrauded of his meals, On whom lank Hunger lays her skinny hand, 650 And whets to keenest eagerness his cravings: As if diseases, massacres, and poison, Famine, and war, were not thy caterers. But know that thou must render up thy dead, And with high interest too.--They are not thine, But only in thy keeping for a season, Till the great promised day of restitution; When loud-diffusive sound from brazen trump Of strong-lung'd cherub shall alarm thy captives, And rouse the long, long sleepers into life, 660 Day-light, and liberty.-- Then must thy gates fly open, and reveal The mines that lay long forming under ground, In their dark cells immured; but now full ripe, And pure as silver from the crucible, That twice has stood the torture of the fire And inquisition of the forge. We know, The illustrious Deliverer of mankind, The Son of God, thee foil'd. Him in thy power Thou couldst not hold: self-vigorous he rose, 670 And, shaking off thy fetters, soon retook Those spoils his voluntary yielding lent: (Sure pledge of our releasement from thy thrall!) Twice twenty days he sojourn'd here on earth, And show'd himself alive to chosen witnesses, By proofs so strong, that the most slow-assenting Had not a scruple left. This having done, He mounted up to heaven. Methinks I see him Climb the aerial heights, and glide along