Turn not away, though pity’s cheek grow pale,
Close not thine ear against their awful tale.
They tell thee Reason, wandering from the ray
Of Faith, the blazing pillar of her way,
In the mid-darkness of the stormy wave
Forsook the struggling soul she could not save!
Weep not, sad moralist! o’er desert plains
Strew’d with the wrecks of grandeur—mouldering fanes,
Arches of triumph, long with weeds o’ergrown,
And regal cities, now the serpent’s own: