He mock'd at warning, scorn'd reproach, nor deign'd

[Pg 13]

To answer either, and remorse's dart

Recoil'd from his impenetrable heart:

Save in those hours when darkness or when pain

Recals its force, and guilt recedes again;

When passion, vice, and fancy quit their sway,

When lawless pleasure trembling shrinks away,

While black conviction's rushing whirlwinds quench

Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench;

And thro' the soul's chill gloom, fierce conscience pours

His fiery arrows in resistless showers.

But, as accumulated guilt oppress'd

With stronger obstacles his hardening breast,

Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew,

And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew.

Like traces on the mountain's giant form

Imprinted by the finger of the storm,

They vanish'd; fierce atrocity return'd

Triumphant, and the galling shackles spurn'd.

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