C. M.

The death of a sinner.

My thoughts on aweful subjects roll,

Damnation and the dead;

What horrors seize the guilty soul

Upon a dying bed!

Ling'ring about these mortal shores,

She makes a long delay,

Till, like a flood, with rapid force

Death sweeps the wretch away.

Then swift and dreadful she descends

Down to the fiery coast,

Amongst abominable fiends,

Herself a frightful ghost.

There endless crowds of sinners lie,

And darkness makes their chains;

Tortured with keen despair they cry,

Yet wait for fiercer pains.

Not all their anguish and their blood

For their old guilt atones,

Nor the compassion of a God

Shall hearken to their groans.