Lo! thou art bound; a slave in Satan’s chain;
The righteous Abel turn’d the wretched Cain;
His brother’s blood against the murderer cried,
Against thee thine, unhappy suicide! 
Are all our pious nights and peaceful days,
Our evening readings and our morning praise,
Our spirits’ comfort in the trials sent,
Our hearts’ rejoicings in the blessings lent,
All that o’er grief a cheering influence shed,
Are these for ever and for ever fled? 
   “When in the years gone by, the trying years,
When faith and hope had strife with wants and fears,
Thy nerves have trembled till thou couldst not eat
(Dress’d by this hand) thy mess of simple meat;
When, grieved by fastings, gall’d by fates severe,
Slow pass’d the days of the successless year;
Still in these gloomy hours, my brother then
Had glorious views, unseen by prosperous men: 
And when thy heart has felt its wish denied,
What gracious texts hast thou to grief applied;
Till thou hast enter’d in thine humble bed,
By lofty hopes and heavenly musings fed;
Then I have seen thy lively looks express
The spirit’s comforts in the man’s distress. 
   “Then didst thou cry, exulting, ’Yes, ’tis fit,
‘Tis meet and right, my heart! that we submit:’ 
And wilt thou, Abel, thy new pleasures weigh
Against such triumphs?—­Oh? repent and pray. 
   “What are thy pleasures?—­with the gay to sit,
And thy poor brain torment for awkward wit;
All thy good thoughts (thou hat’st them) to restrain,
And give a wicked pleasure to the vain;
Thy long, lean frame by fashion to attire,
That lads may laugh and wantons may admire;
To raise the mirth of boys, and not to see,
Unhappy maniac! that they laugh at thee
   “These boyish follies, which alone the boy
Can idly act, or gracefully enjoy,
Add new reproaches to thy fallen state,
And make men scorn what they would only hate. 
   “What pains, my brother, dost thou take to prove
A taste for follies which thou canst not love! 
Why do thy stiffening limbs the steed bestride —
That lads may laugh to see thou canst not ride? 
And why (I feel the crimson tinge my cheek)
Dost thou by night in Diamond-Alley sneak? 
   “Farewell! the parish will thy sister keep,
Where she in peace shall pray and sing and sleep,
Save when for thee she mourns, thou wicked, wandering sheep. 
When youth is fallen, there’s hope the young may rise,
But fallen age for ever hopeless lies;
Torn up by storms, and placed in earth once more,
The younger tree may sun and soil restore;
But when the old and sapless trunk lies low,
No care or soil can former life bestow;
Reserved for burning is the worthless tree —
And what, O Abel! is reserved for thee?”
   These angry words our hero deeply felt,
Though hard his heart, and indisposed to melt! 
To gain relief he took a glass the more,
And then went on as careless as before;