The strait of stairs to that infectious hold;

And, when I enter’d, misery met my view }

In every shape she wears, in every hue, }

And the bleak icy blast across the dungeon flew; }

There frown’d the ruin’d walls that once were white;

There gleam’d the panes that once admitted light;

There lay unsavoury scraps of wretched food;

And there a measure, void of fuel, stood.

But who shall part by part describe the state

Of these, thus follow’d by relentless fate? 720