Of friend or stranger, who, with soothing words
And slender gift, would fain beguile my woes:
In vain; for what can aught avail to sooth
Such raging anguish? Oft with sudden glance
Before my eyes in all its horror glares
That well-known form, and oft I seem to hear
The thundering scourge—ah me! e’en now I feel
Its deadly venom, raging as the pangs
That tore Alcides, when the burning vest
Prey’d on his wasted sides,—At length return’d