It came, the hour of wrath, the hour of woe,

Which to deep solitude and tears consign’d

The peopled realm, the realm of joy and mirth.

A gloom was on the heavens, no mantling glow

Announced the morn—it seem’d as nature pined,

And boding clouds obscured the sunbeam’s birth;

While, startling the pale earth,

Bursting upon the mighty and the proud

With visitation dread,

Their crests the Eternal, in his anger, bow’d,