On Mr Howard's Account of Lazarettos

Mortal! who, armed with holy fortitude,The path of good right onward hast pursued;May HE, to whose eternal throne on highThe sufferers of the earth with anguish cry,Be thy protector! On that dreary roadThat leads thee patient to the last abodeOf wretchedness, in peril and in pain,May HE thy steps direct, thy heart sustain!'Mid scenes, where pestilence in darkness flies;In caverns, where deserted misery lies;So safe beneath His shadow thou may'st go,To cheer the dismal wastes of human woe.O CHARITY! our helpless nature's pride,Thou friend to him who knows no friend beside,Is there in morning's breath, or the sweet galeThat steals o'er the tired pilgrim of the vale,Cheering with fragrance fresh his weary frame,Aught like the incense of thy sacred flame?Is aught in all the beauties that adornThe azure heaven, or purple lights of morn;Is aught so fair in evening's lingering gleam,As from thine eye the meek and pensive beamThat falls like saddest moonlight on the hillAnd distant grove, when the wide world is still!Thine are the ample views, that unconfinedStretch to the utmost walks of human kind:Thine is the spirit that with widest planBrother to brother binds, and man to man.But who for thee, O Charity! will bearHardship, and cope with peril and with care!Who, for thy sake, will social sweets foregoFor scenes of sickness, and the sights of woe!Who, for thy sake, will seek the prison's gloom,Where ghastly Guilt implores her lingering doom;Where Penitence unpitied sits, and pale,That never told to human ears her tale;Where Agony, half-famished, cries in vain;Where dark Despondence murmurs o'er her chain;Where gaunt Disease is wasted to the bone,And hollow-eyed Despair forgets to groan!Approving Mercy marks the vast design,And proudly cries--HOWARD, the task be thine!Already 'mid the darksome vaults profound,The inner prison deep beneath the ground,Consoling hath thy tender look appeared:In horror's realm the voice of peace is heard!Be the sad scene disclosed; fearless unfoldThe grating door--the inmost cell behold!Thought shrinks from the dread sight; the paly lampBurns faint amid the infectious vapours damp;Beneath its light full many a livid mien,And haggard eye-ball, through the dusk are seen.In thought I see thee, at each hollow sound,With humid lids oft anxious gaze around.But oh! for him who, to yon vault confined,Has bid a long farewell to human kind;His wasted form, his cold and bloodless cheek,A tale of sadder sorrow seem to speak:Of friends, perhaps now mingled with the dead;Of hope, that, like a faithless flatterer, fledIn the utmost hour of need; or of a sonCast to the bleak world's mercy; or of oneWhose heart was broken, when the stern behestTore him from pale affection's bleeding breast.Despairing, from his cold and flinty bed,With fearful muttering he has raised his head:What pitying spirit, what unwonted guest,Strays to this last retreat, these shades unblest?From life and light shut out, beneath this cellLong have I bid the cheering sun farewell.I heard for ever closed the jealous door,I marked my bed on the forsaken floor,I had no hope on earth, no human friend:Let me unpitied to the dust descend!Cold is his frozen heart--his eye is rearedTo Heaven no more--and on his sable beardThe tear has ceased to fall. Thou canst not bringBack to his mournful heart the morn of spring;--Thou canst not bid the rose of health renewUpon his wasted cheek its crimson hue;But at thy look, (ere yet to hate resigned,He murmurs his last curses on mankind),At thy kind look one tender thought shall rise,And his full soul shall thank thee ere he dies!Oh ye, who list to Pleasure's vacant song,As in her silken train ye troop along;Who, like rank cowards, from affliction fly,Or, whilst the precious hours of life pass by,Lie slumbering in the sun! Awake, arise,To these instructive pictures turn your eyes;The awful view with other feelings scan,And learn from HOWARD what man owes to man!These, Virtue! are thy triumphs, that adornFitliest our nature, and bespeak us bornFor loftier action; not to gaze and runFrom clime to clime; nor flutter in the sun,Dragging a droning flight from flower to flower,Like summer insects in a gaudy hour;Nor yet o'er love-sick tales with fancy range,And cry--'Tis pitiful, 'tis wondrous strange!But on life's varied views to look around,And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:--And he who thus has borne his part assignedIn the sad fellowship of human kind,Or for a moment soothed the bitter painOf a poor brother, has not lived in vain!But 'tis not that Compassion should bestowAn unavailing tear on want or woe:Lo! fairer Order rises from thy plan,Befriending virtue, and adorning man.That Comfort cheers the dark abode of pain,Where wan Disease prayed for relief in vain;That Mercy soothes the hard behest of law;That Misery smiles upon her bed of straw;That the dark felon's clan no more, combined,Murmur in murderous leagues against mankind;That to each cell, a mild yet mournful guest,Contrition comes, and calms the laboring breast,Whilst long-forgotten tears of virtue flow;Thou, generous friend of all--to thee we owe!To thee, that Pity sees her views expandTo many a cheerless haunt, and distant land!Whilst warm Philanthropy extends her ray,Wide as the world, and general as the day!HOWARD! I view those deeds, and think how vainThe triumphs of weak man, the feeble strainThat Flattery brings to Conquest's crimson car,Amid the bannered host, and the proud tents of war!From realm to realm the hideous War-fiend hiesWide o'er the wasted earth; before him fliesAffright, on pinions fleeter than the wind;Whilst Death and Desolation fast behindThe havoc of his echoing march pursue:Meantime his steps are bathed in the warm dewOf bloodshed, and of tears;--but his dread nameShall perish--the loud clarion of his fameOne day shall cease, and, wrapt in hideous gloom,Forgetfulness bestride his shapeless tomb!But bear thou fearless on;--the God of all,To whom the afflicted kneel, the friendless call,From His high throne of mercy shall approveThe holy deeds of Mercy and of Love:For when the vanities of life's brief dayOblivion's hurrying wing shall sweep away,Each act by Charity and Mercy done,High o'er the wrecks of time, shall live alone,Immortal as the heavens, and beauteous bloomTo other worlds, and realms beyond the tomb.