Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion

H

William Cowper

Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,

Scarce can endure delay of execution,

Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my

Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas: more abhorred than he was,

Who for a few pence sold his holy master.

Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,

Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:

Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;

Therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all

Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;

Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,

I’m called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence

Worse than Abiram’s.

Him the vindictive rod of angry justice

Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;

I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am

Buried above ground.

483

Rating:

Nina

20-01-2024 05:16:30

This poem evokes a strong sense of darkness and despair, with vivid imagery and emotions of hatred and vengeance. The speaker expresses a profound feeling of isolation and rejection by humanity and a higher power, feeling condemned by society and even by God. The comparison to Judas, the ultimate traitor, emphasizes the speaker's feelings of being despised and forsaken. They see themselves as a truly wretched figure, betrayed not once, but twice - by both their own actions and by Jesus himself.

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