Explore "To Ruin" by Robert Burns on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
All hail! inexorable lord! / At whose destruction-breathing word, / The mightiest empires fall! / Thy cruel, woe-delighted train, / The ministers of grief and pain, / A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye, / I see each aimed dart; / For one has cut my dearest tie, / And quivers in my heart. / Then low'ring, and pouring, / The storm no more I dread; / Tho' thick'ning, and black'ning, / Round my devoted head.
And thou grim Pow'r by life abhorr'd, / While life a pleasure can afford, / Oh! hear a wretch's pray'r! / Nor more I shrink appall'd, afraid; / I court, I beg thy friendly aid, / To close this scene of care! / When shall my soul, in silent peace, / Resign life's joyless day- / My weary heart its throbbing cease, / Cold mould'ring in the clay? / No fear more, no tear more, / To stain my lifeless face, / Enclasped, and grasped, / Within thy cold embrace!