Beauties of the mind, a poetical sketch :: :: University of Virginia Library

The dungeon walls were dark and high—
The narrow pavement bare—
No sunlight of the blessed sky,
Might ever enter there:
In all the melancholy weeks,
The prisoner chained had lain,
No breath of heaven had kissed his cheeks,
Or cooled his fevered brain.

II

For him,—awake—asleep—there came
No vision of sweet rest;
Undying memory, like a flame,
Burned in his guilty breast:
Dark as the weary gloom around,
His soul was dark within;
For, oh!—he lived but in the sound
Of shamelessness and sin!

III

His mother heard his final doom,
With shrieks that thrilled through all;
Could nothing save him from the tomb—
Must he—oh God!—thus fall!
The arrow pierced her aged head,
With cold and deadly pain;
She tottered senseless to her bed—
And never rose again!

IV

His father spoke not—but the pale
And quivering lip confest,
The agonies which did assail
His miserable breast:
His eyes were closed,—as if the light
Was loathsome to behold;
But tears burst from the lids to sight—
They could not be controled!

V

Fast flew the fatal hours,—he trod
Life's very brink, alone;
Yet had no hope—no fear—no God!—
His heart was turned to stone:
I saw him as he passed along,
A branded death to die;
Wild curses were upon his tongue—
Despair, and blasphemy!

VI

If there be one these lines may teach
A moral; not in vain
Have I endeavoured thus to reach
A more reflective strain:
The picture is from life—each day
As sad a tale records;—
Virtue! may thy eternal ray
Light all our deeds and words!