Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/45

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33

Round each white furnace ply the unceasing toil,Were Mammon's slaves on earth. They did not spareTo wring from Poverty the hard-earn'd mite,They robb'd the orphan's pittance, they could seeWant's asking eye unmoved; and therefore these,Ranged round the furnace, still must persevereIn Mammon's service; scorched by these fierce fires,And frequent deluged by the o'erboiling ore:Yet still so framed, that oft to quench their thirstUnquenchable, large draughts of molten ^[1]gold

↑ The same idea, and almost the same words are in an old play by John Ford. The passage is a very fine one:
Ay, you are wretched, miserably wretched,Almost condemn’d alive! There is a place,(List daughter!) in a black and hollow vault,Where day is never seen; there shines no sun,But flaming horror of consuming fires;A lightless sulphur, choak’d with smoaky foggsOf an infected darkness. In this placeDwell many thousand thousand sundry sortsOf never-dying deaths; there damned soulsRoar without pity, there are gluttons fed

[p33-1] The same idea, and almost the same words are in an old play by John Ford. The passage is a very fine one:
Ay, you are wretched, miserably wretched,Almost condemn’d alive! There is a place,(List daughter!) in a black and hollow vault,Where day is never seen; there shines no sun,But flaming horror of consuming fires;A lightless sulphur, choak’d with smoaky foggsOf an infected darkness. In this placeDwell many thousand thousand sundry sortsOf never-dying deaths; there damned soulsRoar without pity, there are gluttons fed

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