Fragment

Descriptive of the miseries of War; from a Poem

called "The Emigrants," printed in 1793.

TO a wild mountain, whose bare summit hides

Its broken eminence in clouds; whose steeps

Are dark with woods: where the receding rocks

Are worn with torrents of dissolving snow;

A wretched woman, pale and breathless, flies,

And, gazing round her, listens to the sound

Of hostile footsteps:--No! they die away--

Nor noise remains, but of the cataract,

Or surly breeze of night, that mutters low

Among the thickets, where she trembling seeks

A temporary shelter--Clasping close

To her quick throbbing heart her sleeping child,

All she could rescue of the innocent group

That yesterday surrounded her--Escaped

Almost by miracle!--Fear, frantic Fear,

Wing'd her weak feet; yet, half repenting now

Her headlong haste, she wishes she had staid

To die with those affrighted Fancy paints

The lawless soldiers' victims--Hark! again

The driving tempest bears the cry of Death;

And with deep, sudden thunder, the dread sound

Of cannon vibrates on the tremulous earth;

While, bursting in the air, the murderous bomb

Glares o'er her mansion--Where the splinters fall

Like scatter'd comets, its destructive path

Is mark'd by wreaths of flame!--Then, overwhelm'd

Beneath accumulated horror, sinks

The desolate mourner!

The feudal chief, whose gothic battlements

Frown on the plain beneath, returning home

From distant lands, alone, and in disguise,

Gains at the fall of night his castle walls,

But, at the silent gate no porter sits

To wait his lord's admittance!--In the courts

All is drear stillness!--Guessing but too well

The fatal truth, he shudders as he goes

Through the mute hall; where, by the blunted light

That the dim moon through painted casement lends,

He sees that devastation has been there;

Then, while each hideous image to his mind

Rises terrific, o'er a bleeding corse

Stumbling he falls; another intercepts

His staggering feet--All, all who used to

With joy to meet him, all his family

Lie murder'd in his way!--And the day dawns

On a wild raving maniac, whom a fate

So sudden and calamitous has robb'd

Of reason; and who round his vacant walls

Screams unregarded, and reproaches Heaven!