 | Lays of Melpomene |  |
SONNET.
Of Jove and sunny-haired MnemosyneO high-souled Daughter! If in these sad lays
Or thought or feeling gleam and live, the praise
Is due, high Priestess of the Lyre! to thee.
E'en in the earliest days of memory
My undirected musings wandered forth
From dull oppression and unmannered mirth,
And held high converse, 'neath the old oak tree
I loved, with thee, O tearful Goddess! Left
An infant orphan, and enslaved by those
Who, kindred friends, became my bitterest foes;
In childhood of a sister-love bereft,
And ever haunted by the fiends of ill;
Queen of lone hearts! as then I love thee still!
| Lays of Melpomene | |