Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of Man.
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd1035
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 eye1040
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing ships, from shore to shore;
Heard, nigthly plung'd amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse; while on each other fix'd;
In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd,1045
Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague,
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,
Descends? [1]From Ethiopia's poisoned woods,1050
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,1055
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,1060
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand
Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop
The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy,
- ↑ These are the causes supposed to be the first origin of the Plague in Dr. Mead's elegant Book on that subject.
