Poems of religion and society.: With notices of his life and character by John Davis and T. H. Benton.

50 THE THIRTEENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.
But, what his breast with torture chiefly rends
Larger than life thy sacredform ascends,
With deadly fears his dastard soul to press,
And force his lips their falsehood to confess.
Heaven's earliest murmurs cause his heart to fail,
And every flash of lightning turns him pale;
By storms or chance impelled, no bolts can fly,
He thinks, but vengeance hurls it from on high.
If, yet unhurt, he sees one storm pass o'er.
He only trembles at the next the more.
If in his side he feels the slightest pains,
Or sleepless fever riot in his veins,
The weapons of a god he fancies these,
Sent to afflict his body with disease.
For health he dares not ask the powers divine,
With votive offerings at the sacred shrine;
For oh! what mercy can the guilty mind,
In illness, hope from angry heaven to find?
What bleeding victims for his crimes atone,
Whose life were not more precious than his own?
With what a changeful, sickliness of soul,
The varying tempers of the wicked roll!
Crimes to commit how bold they are and strong!
But soon they learn to know the right from wrong.
Yet stubborn nature all amendment spurns,
And to her evil practices returns.
For what offender ever yet was found
Who to his vices could prescribe a bound?
The blush of shame, when once expelled the face,