Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion

By 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.

Notes:
This poem is also known under the title, "Lines Written During a Fit of Insanity."
Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (2006)