Condense its force, expand it, or restrain;
To turn the tide of conquest to defeat
By stratagems too fatally complete,
Or freeze it by delay; to aim at will
The well-timed stroke that mars all adverse skill;
To range, in order firm, th'embattled line;
Or shape, as regular, the bold design;
All these were his--yet not all these could claim
Exemptions from the lot of penal shame,
Or snatch from glory's plant one servile wreath,
To deck the waste of crimes, that frown'd beneath.
Harden'd in villany, with fate unfeign'd
He mock'd at warning, scorn'd reproach, nor deign'd
To answer either, and remorse's dart
Recoil'd from his impenetrable heart:
Save in those hours when darkness or when pain
Recals its force, and guilt recedes again;
When passion, vice, and fancy quit their sway,
When lawless pleasure trembling shrinks away,
While black conviction's rushing whirlwinds quench
Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench;
And thro' the soul's chill gloom, fierce conscience pours
His fiery arrows in resistless showers.
But, as accumulated guilt oppress'd
With stronger obstacles his hardening breast,
Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew,
And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew.
Like traces on the mountain's giant form
Imprinted by the finger of the storm,
They vanish'd; fierce atrocity return'd