1793 19

1793.19
Sonnet III
To the Continental Despots
Anon
The Cambridge Intelligencer (October 12, 1793)

Alas! for Poland!—her dismember'd plain,
Deeply laments the Tyrant's horrid arm;[1]
In vain she wakes the impotent alarm,
Her pleading senate supplicate in vain.

Hark! o'er their prey, oppression's furies howl!
Ravenous and fell!—and will not Europe hear?
O Justice! Justice! where reclines thy spear?
Where is the great, the brave, the generous soul?

Abhorr'd Ambition—thy insensate heart
    Feels not the burthen of another's woes.
    Thine is the task to vex the world's repose,
And bid the tears of suffering nature start;
'Midst carnage vast, thy conquests to proclaim,
And grasp, with goary hand, the wreath of mournful
                             Fame.