 | The Solitary, and other poems |  |
“No dream hath come to me this night,
Through the long darkness to the light,
Which rose at last in Hell's despite.
Thoughts have been things; strange life has crept
About me; through my pulses leapt:
Loud knockings at my heart and brain,
Quick worms meandering through each vein.
A thousand times the hoarded wealth
Thou got'st by murder or by stealth,
A thousand years of youth and health,
I'd scorn, ay, if quadrupled thrice,
Were such another night the price.
Thou hast done this; 'tis thou hast made
A terror of the sexton's spade;
Thou hast made death than living worse,
And thou who hast made life a curse.
And so I curse thee; from my soul,
Lost as it is, on thee I thrust
A curse, which down thy earthy hole
Shall go with thee, and rack thy dust;
And be a life within thy clay,
A horror, till the Judgment day!”
Through the long darkness to the light,
Which rose at last in Hell's despite.
Thoughts have been things; strange life has crept
About me; through my pulses leapt:
Loud knockings at my heart and brain,
Quick worms meandering through each vein.
139
Thou got'st by murder or by stealth,
A thousand years of youth and health,
I'd scorn, ay, if quadrupled thrice,
Were such another night the price.
Thou hast done this; 'tis thou hast made
A terror of the sexton's spade;
Thou hast made death than living worse,
And thou who hast made life a curse.
And so I curse thee; from my soul,
Lost as it is, on thee I thrust
A curse, which down thy earthy hole
Shall go with thee, and rack thy dust;
And be a life within thy clay,
A horror, till the Judgment day!”
| The Solitary, and other poems | |