Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/196

Pale horror, ghastly fear, and black despair
Pursue his steps, and dog him wheresoe'er
He goes, and if from his loathed self he fly,
To herd, like wounded deer, in company,
These straight creep in and pall his mirth and joy.
The choicest dainties, even by Lumly dressed,
Afford no relish to his sickly taste,
Insipid all as Damocles' feast.
Even wine, the greatest blessing of mankind,
The best support of the dejected mind,
Applied to his dull spirits, warms no more
Than to his corpse it could past life restore.
Darkness he fears, nor dares he trust his bed
Without a candle watching by his side;
And, if the wakeful troubles of his breast
To his tossed limbs allow one moment's rest,
Straightways the groans of ghosts, and hideous screams
Of tortured spirits, haunt his frightful dreams;
Straight then returns to his tormented mind
His perjured act, his injured God, and friend;
Straight he imagines you before his eyes,
Ghastly of shape, and of prodigious size,
With glaring eyes, cleft foot, and monstrous tail,
And bigger than the giants at Guildhall,
Stalking with horrid strides across the room,
And guards of fiends to drag him to his doom;
Hereat he falls in dreadful agonies,
And dead cold sweats his trembling members seize;
Then starting wakes, and with a dismal cry,
Calls to his aid his frighted family;
There owns the crime, and vows upon his knees
The sacred pledge next morning to release.
These are the men whom the least terrors daunt,
Who at the sight of their own shadows faint;
These, if it chance to lighten, are aghast,
And quake for fear, lest every flash should blast;
These swoon away at the first thunderclap,
As if 'twere not what usually does hap,