Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year,
Parent of want and misery severe;
Or where, all-dreadful in th’ embattled line,
The hostile ships in flaming combat join,
Where the torn vessel, wind and waves assail,
Till o’er her crew distress and death prevail.—
Such joyless toils, in early youth endured,
Th’ expanding dawn of mental day obscured,
Each genial passion of the soul oppressed,
And quenched the ardour kindling in his breast: