The well-timed stroke that mars all adverse skill;
    To range, in order firm, th’embattled line;
    Or shape, as regular, the bold design;
    All these were his—­yet not all these could claim
    Exemptions from the lot of penal shame,
    Or snatch from glory’s plant one servile wreath,
    To deck the waste of crimes, that frown’d beneath. 
    Harden’d in villany, with fate unfeign’d
    He mock’d at warning, scorn’d reproach, nor deign’d
    To answer either, and remorse’s dart
    Recoil’d from his impenetrable heart: 
    Save in those hours when darkness or when pain
    Recals its force, and guilt recedes again;
    When passion, vice, and fancy quit their sway,
    When lawless pleasure trembling shrinks away,
    While black conviction’s rushing whirlwinds quench
    Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench;
    And thro’ the soul’s chill gloom, fierce conscience pours
    His fiery arrows in resistless showers. 
    But, as accumulated guilt oppress’d
    With stronger obstacles his hardening breast,
    Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew,
    And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew. 
    Like traces on the mountain’s giant form
    Imprinted by the finger of the storm,
    They vanish’d; fierce atrocity return’d
    Triumphant, and the galling shackles spurn’d.

      Him closely following, with a thoughtful pace
    And slow, the young Ernestus took his place;
    Like Bernheim, graced with an illustrious birth,
    But hapless Sweden was his native earth. 
    His father sunk by death’s untimely doom,
    His youthful mother followed to the tomb,
    And to a honour’d friend’s paternal care
    Bequeath’d her only hope, her infant heir. 
    With wary steps had Harfagar pass’d o’er
    The world’s wide scene, and learn’d its various lore;
    And, with religion’s pole-star for his guide,
    Serenely voyaged life’s tempestuous tide. 
    Yet in Ernestus’ mind his skilful sense
    Observ’d no dawn of future excellence;
    He found no early graces to adorn
    Of springing life the inauspicious morn;
    No prompt benevolence, no sacred flow
    Of purest feeling taught his heart to glow;
    But virtue’s native influence was in him,
    A wintry sun-beam, not extinct, but dim. 
    Yet Harfagar with kind attention tried
    To rouse the warmth her hidden beams supplied;
    And, wheresoe’er his penetrating eye
    One bud of distant promise could descry,
    There all his toil was bent, to fix the root
    Unmoved, and spread secure the growing shoot. 
    He watch’d the rising blossoms as they grew,
    Preserv’d with constant care their lively hue,
    Spread o’er each flow’ret a protecting veil
    To shelter it from trial’s rougher gale,
    And clear’d, with strenuous and unceasing toil,