The professor and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

A sudden traitorous terror leaps
Out of the darkness on my heart,
And stabs it through and through, and creeps
Some space apart,
That should the helpless fallen thing
Stir hand, or moan to feel its pain,
With frenzied passion it may spring,
And smite again:—
Is then this heart of mine too weak
To bear the wilful rush of joy,
Sharp ardours, such as pale the cheek
Of girl and boy?

I know not;—faint and shuddering
I from my dreams of bliss am hurled,
As that barbaric reckless king,
Who swayed the world,
Yet saw, beyond the riotous band,
Across the rich uproarious room,
The crawling shadow of the Hand
That wrote his doom.