frame.

Once she was gentle, fair, and kind, To no seducing schemes inclined, Would blush to hear a smutty tale, Nor ever strolled o’er hill or dale, But lived a sweet domestic maid, To lend her aged parents aid— And oft they gazed and oft they smiled On this their loved and only child: They thought they might in her be blest, And she would see them laid at rest.

p. 213A blithesome youth of courtly mien Oft called to see this rural queen: His oily tongue and wily art Soon gained Maria’s yielding heart. The aged pair, too, liked the youth, And thought him naught but love and truth. The village feast at length is come; Maria by the youth’s undone: The youth is gone—so is her fame; And with it all her sense of shame: And now she practises the art Which snared her unsuspecting heart; And vice, with a progressive sway, More hardened makes her every day. Averse to good and prone to ill, And dexterous in seducing skill; To look, as if her eyes would melt: T’ affect a love she never felt; To half suppress the rising sigh; Mechanically to weep and cry; To vow eternal truth, and then To break her vow, and vow again; Her ways are darkness, death, and hell: Remorse and shame and passions fell, And short-lived joy, with endless pain, Pursues her in a gloomy train.

p. 213

O Britain fair, thou queen of isles! Nor hostile arms nor hostile wiles Could ever shake thy solid throne But for thy sins. Thy sins alone Can make thee stoop thy royal head, And lay thee prostrate with the dead. In vain colossal England mows, With ponderous strength, the yielding foes; p. 214In vain fair Scotia, by her side, With courage flushed and Highland pride, Whirls her keen blade with horrid whistle And lops off heads like tops of thistle; In vain brave Erin, famed afar, The flaming thunderbolt of war, Profuse of life, through blood does wade, To lend her sister kingdom aid: Our conquering thunders vainly roar Terrific round the Gallic shore; Profoundest statesmen vainly scheme— ’Tis all a vain, delusive dream, If treacherously within our breast We foster sin, the deadly pest.

p. 214

Where Sin abounds Religion dies, And Virtue seeks her native skies; Chaste Conscience hides for very shame, And Honour’s but an empty name. Then, like a flood, with fearful din, A gloomy host comes pouring in. First Bribery, with her golden shield, Leads smooth Corruption o’er the field; Dissension wild, with brandished spear, And Anarchy bring up the rear: Whilst Care and Sorrow, Grief and Pain Run howling o’er the bloody plain.

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