DEATH.

"Darest thou die ?"

SHAKSPEARE.

DEATH.

THRONED in a vault where sleep departed kings,

Behold the Tyrant of the World! Around

His shadowy head he waves a sceptre, made

Of monumental dust; and as it moves,
Before him glide a visionary throng

Of ministers, that do his deadly will.

First, MURDER, with an eye of wolfish glare, And brow of adamantine sternness, frowns,

His brooding visage blanch'd with guilt, and cold As dead revenge; then Madness, with her locks

Of graceless beauty, crowding o'er a face

B

Terrifically wild her cheeks are shrunk

:

As wither'd flowers, and in her fixed eye
A lustre meaningless, yet mournful, dwells.
Like a pale cloud she glides along, and looks
Upon her lean-worn palms, before her spread-
As tablets, where her idiot thoughts are traced!

Next MELANCHOLY, with a downward brow, Slow-paced, and solemn in her aspect, comes; Behind, INTEMP'RANCE, with degraded face, Complexion'd like the redden'd clouds, that clasp The dying sun; then ANGER, with a storm Of meaning hung upon her blacken'd front, And TERROR, eloquently dumb-appear.

With step as noiseless as the slumb'ring air, Who comes in beautiful decay?-her eyes Dissolving with a feverish glow of light,

Her pallid nostrils delicately closed,

Her ringlets gather'd in a languid wreath,

And on that cheek, once round with health's rich

bloom,

A hectic tinge, as if the fairy tip

Of Beauty's finger faintly press'd it there,

Alas! CONSUMPTION is her fatal name.

But lo! a contrast!-fierce with shining mail,
Sublime in aspect, and supreme in gait,

Waving a crimson banner o'er his head,

With giant pace, stalks by terrific WAR!

His task?-To shatter thrones, and sully kings.

To these sad ministers of Death, succeed

Of Maladies a hideous crew; not least

Appalling, PESTILENCE, with eyes aghast,
And FAMINE, wither'd to a woful form.