Definition of "distressful"

There, vvhile above the giddy tempeſt flies, / And all around diſtreſsful yells ariſe, / The penſive exile, bending vvith his vvoe, / To ſtop too fearful, and too faint to go.

1764 December 19 (indicated as 1765), Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society. A Poem. […], London: […] J[ohn] Newbery, […], page 21

Once more, that fulness of prophetic joy,With which this unborn Jubilee he mark'dThrough the long vista of distressful years,While the dark war-clouds gathering at his feetInvolved the scene.

1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, On the Death of John Adams, page 191