Charlotte Dacre

1782-1841 / England

The Evil Being

OH! Thou whose breath empoisons the sweet air,
Whose heart is evil, and whose mind despair;
Whose baleful tongue the fairest fame can blight,
Whose deeds of horror shun the eye of light.

How cam'st thou, fiend, upon this earth to dwell?
Did thy perturbed spirit rise from hell?
Or from the close-ribb'd rock in tempest torn?
For thou of woman-kind wert never born!

Look in his aspect--shame ne'er made it glow;
Enthron'd sits crimson murder on his brow;
While ambush'd in his fierce demoniac eye,
Fraud, and the baser passions, scowling lie!
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