Excerpt: ... our dying bodies to obtrude, Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war, Protract a curst existence, with the brood That lap (their very nourishment ) their brother's blood. The pains and plagues that on our heads came down; Disease and famine, agony and fear, In wood or wilderness, in camp or town, It would thy brain unsettle even to hear. All perished-all, in one remorseless year, Husband and children one by one, by sword And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored. Peaceful as some immeasurable plain By the first beams of dawning light impress'd; In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main, The very ocean has its hour of rest, That comes not to the human mourner's breast. Remote from man, and storms of mortal care, A heavenly silence did the waves invest: I looked and looked along the silent air, Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair. Ah how unlike those late terrific sleeps And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke: The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke The shriek that from the distant battle broke The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd, Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame, When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape, While like a sea the storming army came, And Fire from hell reared his gigantic shape, And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape -For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild, And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled. Some mighty...