THE BANISHED.
I
Oh give me back my heavy chain;
I ask not to be free;
I pray'd for life, but now the boon
Has lost its charms for me:
The blameless life of former years,
I know thou canst not give,
And banish'd from the friends of youth,
I cannot wish to live.
II
It is a doom far worse than death,
To join yon guilty band,—
The banish'd ones, who never more
Shall view their own loved land.
The felon in his grave hears not
The curse that brands his name,—
More happy than the criminal,
Whose living lot—is shame.
