Poem by Thomas Gent

The Sibyl

A SKETCH.

So stood the Sibyl: stream'd her hoary hair
Wild as the blast, and with a comet's glare
Glow'd her red eye-balls 'midst the sunken gloom
Of their wild orbs, like death-fires in a tomb.
Slow, like the rising storm, in fitful moans,
Broke from her breast the deep prophetic tones.
Anon, with whirlwind rash, the Spirit came;
Then in dire splendour, like imprison'd flame
Flashing through rifted domes or towns amazed,
Her voice in thunder burst; her arm she raised;
Outstretch'd her hands, as with a Fury's force,
To grasp, and launch the slow descending curse:
Still as she spoke, her stature seem'd to grow;
Still she denounced unmitigable woe:
Pain, want, and madness, pestilence, and death,
Rode forth triumphant at her blasting breath:
Their march she marshall'd, taught their ire to fall—
And seem'd herself the emblem of them all!

1. The Heliotrope
2. Sonnet On seeing a Young Lady I had previously known, confined in a Madhouse
3. Mature Reflections
4. The Grave of Dibdin
5. Invocation to Sleep

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