Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Niger's tainted flood Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad hands! what demon prompts to rear The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore, With laurels watered by the widow's tear Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear! And like the desolating whirlwind's sweep, Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep; For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there Breathes his gold-gendered pestilence afar, And calls, to share the prey, his kindred demon War. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A RUNNABLE STAG by JOHN DAVIDSON IN TIME OF 'THE BREAKING OF NATIONS' by THOMAS HARDY THE CLOUDS: SONG [OR CHORUS] OF THE CLOUDS by ARISTOPHANES ENVY; A FRAGMENT by JANE BOWDLER TO THE QUEENES MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE by ELIZABETH (TANFIELD) CARY THEY DIDN'T THINK by PHOEBE CARY WOMAN'S LOVE AND LIFE, SELECTION by ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO OUT OF THE SHADOWS: AN UNFINISHED SONNET-SEQUENCE 8 by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR. |