Watching the beck of Mutability _10
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

4.
Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl _15
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.

5.
I curse thee by a parent's outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; _20

6.
By those infantine smiles of happy light,
Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth,
Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night
Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:

7.
By those unpractised accents of young speech, _25
Which he who is a father thought to frame
To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach--
THOU strike the lyre of mind!--oh, grief and shame!

8.
By all the happy see in children's growth--