Classic Poem

While pleasure reigns unrivalled on this shore,
The streets of Boston stream with British gore;
While like fall'n Romans for new joys we sigh,
Our friends drop breathless, or for mercy cry.
Perhaps the soldier, lost to pity's charms,
Now stabs the infant in the mother's arms;
Perhaps the husband sees his better part
Welt'ring in gore and bleeding from the heart;
Perhaps the lover, plunged in bitter woe,
Is torn from her whom most he loves below,
And sees the life he values as his own
Yielded in pangs, or hears the dying groan;
Perhaps the son, O agony of pain!
Sees, fatal sight! his aged parent slain;
Perhaps whole families, together hurled,
Seek the dread confines of another world.
O! scene of slaughter fiends alone enjoy,
Fiends who love death and wait but to destroy.
Are widows' tears that never cease to roll,
Are mothers' pangs that penetrate the soul,
Are shrieks of infants sacrificed to rage,
The horrid trophies of the present age?
Eternal Father! in thy mercy quell
The flames of faction that arise from hell;
Pour into British hearts the balm of peace,
And bid, O bid, this cruel carnage cease;
Like Isaac's sons let Britons meet again,
Nor be one brother by the other slain.