Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/336

252 Thy birth portentous dimmed the orient day, What time our hapless sire, Overcome by fond desire, The high command presumed to disobey ; Then didst thou rear thy snaky crest, And raise thy scorpion lash to tear the guilty breast : And never, since that fatal hour, May man, of woman born, expect to' escape thy power. Thy goading stings the branded Cain Cross the' untrodden desert drove, Ere from his cradling home and native plain Domestic man had learnt to rove. By gloomy shade or lonely flood Of vast primeval solitude, Thy step his hurried steps pursued, Thy voice awoke his conscious fears, For ever sounding in his ears A father's curse, a brother's blood;