University of Virginia Library


281

I.—HELL.

MEMORY.

I did remember all my sins, they flocked
Like gibbering ghosts and sheeted
Unearthly shapes that mowed at me and mocked,
Unsummoned and ungreeted;
And with a threatening hand and thwart
Set gaze of features grim and swart,
They came and frowned and fleeted.
Old buried vices from forgotten graves
Like skeletons upstarted,
Re-kindling embers pale in sunless caves,
And cursed me and departed;
But, ere they went, they did bequeath
The cerements that hope enwreath,
And left me broken-hearted.
The charities of piety long past,
No more with sweet perfuming
About the error of my footsteps cast
A gentle fair illuming;
And conscience, with its funeral bell
Tolled only, and the thought was hell
A secret slow consuming.