Poems and Extracts/O King of Terrors! whose unbounded sway
O King of Terrors! whose unbounded sway
All that have life, must certainly obey;
The king, the priest, the prophet, all are thine,
Nor would even God (in flesh) thy stroke decline.
My name is on thy roll, and sure I must
Encrease thy gloomy kingdom in the dust.
My soul at this no apprehension feels,
But trembles at thy swords, thy racks, thy wheels;
Thy scorching fevers, which distract the sense,
And snatch us raving, unprepared from hence; 10
At thy contagious darts, that wound the heads
Of weeping friends who wait at dying beds.—
Spare these, and let thy time be when it will;
My office is to die, and thine to kill.
Gently thy fatal sceptre on me lay,
And take to thy cold arms, insensibly, thy prey.
Anne, Countess of Winchelsea.