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Valentine Verses

or, Lines of Truth, Love, and Virtue. By the Reverend Richard Cobbold
 
 

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129

THE RACK.

Torment me not! O pray relent!
Cease, cease the pang,—I will confess;—
Cease to inflict, to rack, torment,
And I'll confess, O yes, O yes!
My heavy heart is torn within,
Distracted with my cruel sin;
I own I loved, but not thyself,
I loved thine affluence, thy pelf,
But ah not thee; another had
My best affections. O I'm mad!
Torment me not!—Such pangs oppress,
They break my heart; they cut my soul.
Torment me not, and I'll confess
The perfect truth—the whole, the whole.

130

O pity, Lady, pity not,
The wretch in such a wretched lot;
For fault, for crime, he suffers now,
For making false a lover's vow;
He said he lov'd in day of youth,
And knew he spake not love in truth.
Thou wretched man, on looking back,
Who findst thy life a living rack.
Such be the fate of every one,
Who loves for aught but love alone,
And finds it out in after life,
He loves a woman, not his wife.
The rack of conscience makes us all,
For Love and pity, Lady, call.