University of Virginia Library

“IS HOPE A PHANTOM?”

Is Hope a phantom? Holds the crystal cup
Sweet madness only—an we drink it up?
A respite ere the poor, doomed soul is killed?
—Then spake one who had loved: “Hope is no lie,
But real as answered Love, or unfulfilled;
Yet were Hope phantom-false, still would I cry,
‘Hail, Thou Bright Poisoner! let me drink, and die!’”