144 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. n. 



tal of St. Jago tie la Vega, or, as it is now called, 

 Spanish Town. 



Concerning the precise era of these events, it is 

 now perhaps useless to inquire; but if conjecture 



Dying bcqueath'd. f The hour (he said) arrives, 



By ancient sages to our sires foretold!* 



Fierce fiom the deep, with Heav'n's own lightning artrfd, 



The pallid nation comes ! Blood marks their steps ; 



Man's agonies their sport, and man their prey! 



What piercing shrieks still vibrate on the ear! 

 The expiring mother lifts her feeble arm 

 Jn vain to shield her infant ; the hot steel 

 Smoaks with their mingled blood ; and blooming youth. 

 And manly strength, and virgin beauty, meet 

 Alike th" untimely grave; till fell revenge 

 Is cloy'd and tir'd with slaughter. See, full-gorg'd, 

 The vulture sickens o'er his waste of prey, 

 And, surfeit swell'd, the reeking hound expires. 



Yet pause not, Spaniard ! whet thy blunted steel j 

 Take thy full pastime in the field of blood ! 

 But know, stern tyrant, retribution's hour 

 Ere long shall reach thee. Tho" 1 his once lov'd isle, 

 For crimes yet unaton'd, dread Zemi thus 

 To desolation and to death consigns, 

 And thou, the instrument of wrath divine ; 

 In yonder orb, now darkened in his course, 

 Read thy own doom more dreadful ! With the slain, 

 The murtherer falls ! Th' oppressor and th' oppressed 

 Mingle in dust together ! Where are now 

 Thy blood-poliuted glories? Ah ! too late, 

 Learn, when avenging Heav'n presumptuous guilt 

 Gives to its own fell purposes a prey, 

 More marked its fate, more terrible its fall. 



* See B. i. c. 3. p. 92, 



