Three hundred wretches here, denied all light,
In crowded quarters pass the infernal night.
Some for a bed their tattered vestments join,
And some on chest, and some on floors recline;
Shut from the blessings of the evening air
Pensive we lay with mingled corpses there:
Meagre and wan, and scorched with heat below,
We looked like ghosts ere death had made us so:
How could we else, where heat and hunger joined
Thus to debase the body and the mind?
Where cruel thirst the parching throat invades,
Dries up the man and fits him for the shades?
No waters laded from the bubbling spring
To these dire ships these little tyrants bring--
By plank and ponderous beams completely walled
In vain for water, still in vain we called.
No drop was granted to the midnight prayer
To rebels in these regions of despair!
The loathsome cask a deadly dose contains,
Its poison circles through the languid veins.
"Here, generous Briton, generous, as you say,
To my parched tongue one cooling drop convey--
Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat,
Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat!"
Dull flew the hours till, from the East displayed,
Sweet morn dispelled the horrors of the shade:
On every side dire objects met the sight,
And pallid forms, and murders of the night:
The dead were past their pains, the living groan,
Nor dare to hope another morn their own.
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