from The Emigrants: A Poem

[Disillusion with the French Revolution] So many years have passed, Since, on my native hills, I learned to gaze On these delightful landscapes; and those years Have taught me so much sorrow, that my soul Feels not the joy reviving Nature brings; But, in dark retrospect, dejected dwells On human follies, and on human woes.— What is the promise of the infant year, The lively verdure, or the bursting blooms, To those, who shrink from horrors such as War Spreads o'er the affrighted world? With swimming eye, Back on the past they throw their mournful looks, And see the Temple, which they fondly hoped Reason would raise to Liberty, destroyed By ruffian hands; while, on the ruined mass, Flushed with hot blood, the Fiend of Discord sits In savage triumph; mocking every plea Of policy and justice, as she shows The headless corse of one, whose only crime Was being born a Monarch—Mercy turns, From spectacle so dire, her swollen eyes; And Liberty, with calm, unruffled brow Magnanimous, as conscious of her strength In Reason's panoply, scorns to distain Her righteous cause with carnage, and resigns To Fraud and Anarchy the infuriate crowd.— What is the promise of the infant year To those, who (while the poor but peaceful hind Pens, unmolested, the increasing flock Of his rich master in this sea-fenced isle) Survey, in neighboring countries, scenes that make The sick heart shudder; and the man, who thinks, Blush for his species? There the trumpet's voice Drowns the soft warbling of the woodland choir; And violets, lurking in their turfy beds Beneath the flowering thorn, are stained with blood. There fall, at once, the spoiler and the spoiled; While War, wide-ravaging, annihilates The hope of cultivation; gives to Fiends, The meager, ghastly Fiends of Want and Woe, The blasted land—There, taunting in the van Of vengeance-breathing armies, Insult stalks; And, in the ranks, "Famine, and Sword, and Fire, Crouch for employment."