Alexandria gazette & advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1822-1824, 1822-10-05
P0E7RY.
FROM lss n. !. c9ma's..esa' siaVsrtise
NEW-YORK.

Court,
( And keeps eternal watch FER winds s waves,
That to thy portals watt the varied fruits
GEev'ry cline rernote!---Soi of my birth;
domes,
and lofty palaces, and shining spires,
And spacious groves, and busting crowds, have
long
With admiration fill the trav'ller's.eye,
And earn'd his eager praise he mourns the
cloud
aOf gloom portentous, that o'erhangsthy brow,
Who'erst re|oic'd to spend his youthful days
Amid thy cheerful courts, and peopied tow'rs.
Or when. adventurous, mid the busy hum
Oftrid'd artihcers, from quay co quay
a truant stray'd -hsten'd the simple song
,Cejoyial mariner perch'd near the sky,
And long d to bic me far to realms unknown,
Beneath the swelling sail. that gliding by,
4ncGa'd its milk white bosom tow'rd the wave.
Where now the voice of mirth: Thy, festive
halls
So late adorn'd with fashion, beauty, taste,
With lights proflse daz zling the eye of morn,
Are shunn'd as chambers of the sepulchre
The clam rous crowds who filled each iostling
path,
Where trade and barter kept their endless clang,
And anxious faces met, to meet no more -
Whence rose the daily hum, of matters vast
And mutifarous, each toiling for has straw,
Are VANISHED alll--Seard by the. frown OF
Death,
Who midst their traffic rush'd with dart up
raised
THE sole unwelcome stranger, e'er s. on
Change"
No gilded chariot roll its pompous weight
Along those spsfioUs walks; no laughing
throngs
The polish'd marble press, careless and gay.
No.hright array ofarms, nor MARSHALL troops,
Nor glitt'ring banners floating proud in air,
sNorcolumns mov'd by Simultaneous step,
Far as the eye can reach, choak up the way,
And move IN bodies vast to martial sounds
All, all are gone the envious grave has spread
Its chilling Slence's'er the PROSTATE scene
Forlo theAneagre has, foul Pestilence,
Hath stoln, on midnight wing, within thy
walls
And from her lips cadav' rous, breaths the sigh
Of charnel house, upon the death struck throng
Who knew her not at hand Backward they
shruuk
Before tn advancing iend and fed, or died,
As time or fate determine AIirth forsook
The Promis'd banquet; Joys unfinished bowl
IN terror was resign'd pale, with dismay,
He looks to tiy-but hesitates-and falls
FoFthe green, putrid fiend, had unawares
Fire his warm brain, and ting his rolling eve
And hx'd his fate-and pointed him his grave
Wlthone accord the busy concourse haste
From all their wonted haunts, impell'd by fear:
Each, in his brothers. face. MS own alarm
Describes; or on his tongue the deep lament,
For some lov'dfriend, already from his side
Torn timeless while the gen'ral voice pre-
claims,
Or fight, or death, the sad alternative
An things above, below, around, conspire
To push the exile forth. Terror by day,
And sick ming gloom by night, forbid his fet
To loiter long where death has spread her
snares.
Zen in the breeze that through the willow
signs,
In mournfnl melody, he seems to hear
Some warning spirit say--"BEGONE OR
DIE I"
Alas how chang'd the scene! Where late
was heard
The deaf'ning din oftrade aud boist'rous care,
Black Desolation waves her noiseless wand
IT'S as the last of men, withedt the hour
That's pasts had but expir'd-and in the next,
That awful trump should sound, whose note,
they saw,
Shallrend heavens concaye, and the sleepers
call
From forth their bed of ages, Co return,
And people other worlds But breaks the spell
For youder comes the soul-appalng hearse,
The echoing street along bearing its load
OF human fragments to their destin'd home &
Tho not unwept, unfolow'd and unknown
Its ronbhng wheels are gone: silence again
Close draws hen mantle, and the scene is still
Save that thy marble courts with grass DER
grown
Echo thethoughtful watchman's lonely tread,
As on MS post ne ponders out his hour
From house to house the pois'nous spider
swings,
Unbound by space, weaves out her endless
stock,
And wonders why so undisturb'd her task
Aud filthy vermin leave their dark retreats,
Swarm IN the paths where beauty us'd to stray,
Nix in the fighter starye for lack of offal
Whilst round the measur'd spot where danger
Turks,
Unseemly barriers rise, and locks and, bolts,
Frowning in canton en- the careless wretch,
Whose feet might tempt him to the plague
within
All! sad reverse are these thy promises?
Must pale destruction waste at broad noon
day?
And mus. thy daughters weep around the pail
That dire contagion spreads? When DER the
form
9th unsupecting victim, she has blown
Her shiv' ring odours, and with odious touch
Hath smote him to the dust Keep me o
God ]
From death-bed such as this Jet me not
drink
The nauseoos vapor from the monsters Jaw;
Nor SINK untlmely on the couch of pain,
PROSTATE, forsaken, left alone to die,