The night was cover'd with unusual dread,
While ev'ry star malignant influence shed.
Pale spectres thro' the streets of  roam,
From sepulchres amazing echoes come;
While, like a flaming meteor, down the skies,
With threat'ning speed the fatal angel flies.
Reluctant justice, with a grace severe,
Sits in his looks, and triumphs in his air.
A crested helmet shades his awful brows;
Behind his military vesture flows,
And like an ev'ning's ruddy meteor glows.
He grasps his sword, unsheath'd for certain fate,
Destruction, death, and terror on him wait;
Mortal the stroke, invisible the wound,
While dying groans with mingled shrieks resound.
From house to house the dreadful rumour runs,
While wretched fathers mourn their first-born sons.