And ne’er be thy guilt forgiven or forgot;
But as thou hat’st, be hated by mankind
And with the emblems of thy crooked mind
Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God’s own hand,
Wander like him accursed through the land.”
Which reminds one, somehow, of the lines one used to hear in the old-fashioned Christmas pantomimes given out by the Demon. But these were very cruel and in bad taste considering Pope was a cripple.
But in the same poem, Lord Hervey refers to the poet’s affliction again:
“None thy crabbed numbers can endure
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.”
Pope, as will be seen was, however, quite equal to a rejoinder in the same strain.