DM
-
Neal
The Beginning of the End
DM:Â Neal
Date: 22AUG20
Time: 2200UTC
Levels: 1-4
Risk: 7 – Death is Likely
Date: 22AUG20
Time: 2200UTC
Levels: 1-4
Risk: 7 – Death is Likely
Alas, regardless of their doom,
         The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
         Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around ’em wait
The ministers of human fate,
         And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey the murth’rous band!
         Ah, tell them they are men!
These shall the fury Passions tear,
         The vultures of the mind
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
         And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
         That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag’d comfortless Despair,
         And Sorrow’s piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
         Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
         And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
         That mocks the tear it forc’d to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil’d,
And moody Madness laughing wild
         Amid severest woe.
Lo, in the vale of years beneath
         A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
         More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev’ry labouring sinew strains,
         Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
         And slow-consuming Age.
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
         Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
         Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
         And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
      ‘Tis folly to be wise.
Sold out!