University of Virginia Library

ALAS, that aught of sin or shame
Should cling around thy gentle name,
Or sorrow with thy mem'ry twine,
Mid roses fair, its poisoned vine!
Beloved of heaven, that made thee fair--
Earth's favorite child I who gave to thee
Her choicest gills of beauty rare,
How couldst thou aught but happy be?
Yet sadness round thy earlier years
Its ever varying shadows threw.
And midst a world of torturing fears,
Thy trembling womanhood upgrew.
Though rainbows many arched thy path,
They shone amid thy numerous tears,
And stood beneath a sky of wrath.
Though wronged so deeply that mankind
Indignant reads the tale of blood,
Yet thou through mad ambition blind,
Or borne by love's resistless flood,
Too oft did'st do and sanction wrong.
Alas, that crime thy bosom knew!
The Poet mourns it in his song,
And Hist'ry weeps to write it true.