Page:Ode on the Departing Year - Coleridge (1796).djvu/20



ENCE, that fantastic Wantonness of Woe O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear! To plunder'd half-shelter'd Hovel go, Go, and some hunger-bitten Infant hear Moan haply in a dying Mother's Ear; Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd, Pace round some Widow's grave, whose dearer Part Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs The flocking Flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy Heart Groans, and thine eyes a fiercer Sorrow dims, Know (and the Truth shall kindle, thy young mind) What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if to sickly Dreams resign'd All effortless thou leave Earth's common-weal A prey, to the thron'd Murderers of Mankind!