University of Virginia Library

There's a mansion old 'mid the hills of the west,
So old, that men know not by whom it was built;
But its pinnacles grey thro' the forest hoar
Have glimmered a thousand years and more;
And many a tale of sorrow and guilt
Would blanch the cheek,
If its stones could speak
The secrets locked in its silent breast.
Its lords have been great in the olden day;
But the pride of their strength has been broken away:
They moulder unknown in their native land.
And their home has long past to a stranger-hand.
A cunning lawyer, who could feed
Present want with future need,
Had drawn the youth of their latest heir
In the viewless mesh of his subtle snare.
The careless boy he led astray
With the lure of lust and the thirst of play;
With low companions bade him sit,
Who spoke debauch and called it wit—
His passions fanned—employed his purse,
Took all he had, and gave—their curse.
Then, when he'd run his fortune thro',
He sought in debt a fortune new,
And, gambling high and drinking hard,
Threw down his acres, card by card.
The lawyer watched his victim bleed,
Secure in obit, bond, and deed:
At first with humble means began
The quick, obliging business-man;
But carefully picked up each stray feather
Till he was fledged for winter-weather,
Then massed his sordid gains together
And lent to him from whom, 'tis said,
He once had begged his daily bread:
Steadily opened pore by pore,
With a lulling lure and a winning word
Like the flapping wing of the vampire-bird,
And sucked—and sucked, till he bled no more;
Then changed his tone in a single hour;
He felt, and he let him feel his power,
Nor one poor drop of gold would fetch
To slake the thirst of the perishing wretch;
But when he found he had sucked him dry,
He turned his back and let him die.