TO CAPTAIN **** Rebekah Carmichael (later Hay) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T104666 Carmichael, Miss (Rebekah) (fl. 1790-1806). Poems. Edinburgh Peter Hill 1790 pp. 63-64. 92p.

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TO CAPTAIN **** O Thou ! unaw'd by principle or pow'r , Behold and tremble for the fated hour , When nature calls thy heedless soul away , To leave its better part , thy wretched clay . Do you e'er peace or satisfaction find ; Does not your pleasures leave sting behind ? How short's life's joy , how fleeting is our breath ; Reflect one moment on the hour of death ! Behold thy spirit ready to depart , What tortures then shall pierce your harden'd heart ! How many guiltless souls , by you destroy'd , As instruments of pain , shall be employed ? Your troubl'd conscience will abhor the light , Yet terror shall perplex you all the night . Reflect on this , and turn your eyes to Heav'n ; There still is mercy — you may be forgiv'n . In asking pardon , now employ that tongue Which once deceiv'd the ignorant and young . I've heard , O dreadful ! children you betray , And dim the radiance of their rising day . But if you heaven and earth will still disdain , And this last timely warning prove in vain , I fear some hand will quickly be employ'd , And you'll , like other monsters , be destroyed : But if you live till nature play its part , Then doubly doubly shall you feel the smart .