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Metrical Memories of the Late War and Other Poems
Metrical Memories of the Late War and Other Poems Author:James Reed Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: And gloom and hate scowled after, and the deep fell curse of wrath. And tales were told of philtred drug, and deadly poi- son'd cup, That with strange burn... more »ing fevers drank his sovereign's vigour up, Until with horror frenzied, and terror-stricken brain, He sought the counsel of the dead, within their drear domain. THE KING. The midnight hour was come and gone, the tapers all are dim, Yet still the King lay on his couch, array'd in courtly trim; But jewell'd robe, nor purple vest, nor miniver of price, Could veil the assaults disease had made on his life's fortalice; And restlessly he toss'd and turn'd on that soft velvet bed, As if on its luxurious folds were burning embers spread ; Nor could the pomp of boundless wealth and regal power and sway Impart relief to the vulture grief that near his heart chords lay. It was the Second Charles of Spain thus troublously reclined ; His frame with nameless pangs distraught, with nameless fears his mind: That frame distorted by disease by leech's lore unnamed, Now frigid as a glacier, now with Etna's fire iftflamed, Now quivering in the faintness of the rack's extremest strain, Now goaded into frantic life by some more ardent pain; That mind, now weak and stagnant, now wild in fiercest woe, Now seeking life with abject prayers, now courting death's last blow, Now future bliss demanding,—'prize of superstitious deed,— Now every hope abandoned in the gloomy atheist's creed. But than the torture of disease, or supernatural terror, One thought doth fling o'er the wretched King a cloud of darker horror; Though all his heart's pulsations shot torments through each vein, And all his soul's imaginings were fear and horror's train. " Last of my line, I die," he...« less