Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 1.djvu/126

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Whose ulcered soul can know no human helpShrink from the best Physician's certain aid?Oh it were better far to lay me downHere on this cold damp earth, till some wild beastSeize on his willing victim!If to dieWere all, it were most sweet to rest my headOn the cold clod, and sleep the sleep of Death.But if the Archangel's trump at the last hourStartle the ear of Death and wake the soulTo frenzy!—dreams of infancy: fit talesFor garrulous beldames to affrighten babes!I have been guilty, yet my mind can bearThe retrospect of guilt, yet in the hourOf deep contrition to The Eternal lookFor mercy! for the child of Poverty,And "disinherited of happiness,"What if I warr'd upon the world? the worldHad wrong'd me first: I had endured the illsOf hard injustice; all this goodly earth
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