William Cowper (1731–1800)

HATRED and vengeance,—my eternal portion

Scarce can endure delay of execution,—

Wait with impatient readiness to seize my

Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,

Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!

Twice-betrayed Jesus me, the last delinquent,

Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me,

Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;

Therefore, Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all

Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;

Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,

I’m called, if vanquished! to receive a sentence

Worse than Abiram’s.

Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice

Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;

I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am

Buried above ground.