Page:Dramas 1.pdf/340

332

You are at present feeble and exhausted, And lack repose; retire a while, my son. Hark! on the walls without, do you not hear The warder's call to note the rising morn?

The morn! And what have I to do with morn? The redd'ning sky, the smoking camp, the stir Of tented sleepers rousing to the call, The snorting steed, in harness newly dight, Did please my fancy once. Ay; and the sweetness Of my still native woods, when, through the mist, They showed at early dawn their stately oaks, Whose dark'ning forms did gradually appear Like slow approaching friends, known doubtfully. These pleased me once in better days; but now My very soul within me is abhorrent Of every pleasant thing; and that which cheers The stirring soldier or the waking hind, That which the traveller blesses, and the child Greets with a shout of joy, as from the door Of his pent cot he issues to the air, Does but increase my misery. I loathe the light of heaven: let the night, The hideous unblessed night, close o'er me now, And close for ever!