 | Poems |  |
I.
My bosom has become a sepulchreOf departed hopes and joys,—a dungeon
Rather, were the clanking manacles grate
On the rough bars serrated by the toil
Of inborn agony—where the damp base
Of clay is worn into caverns hollow
By sleepless torture, and is deeply tinged
With crimson—mantling from the bursting heart
By uncontrollable fatality
Existence is dominated—patience
Then must raise a battlement, like the rock,
That mountain billows move not, and against
Despair rear an iron front. The ordeal
Of fire and flood ah! who can safely pass?
Who wears a breast of adamant—an heart
Of brass? A frame insensible to pain?
None!—Why then invite the fawn to battle
With the whelpless Lioness—the fair dove
178
Stoic Philosophy is the parent
Of the veriest idiotism—and wears
Her sable robe in mockery when grief
Demands a balm;—a shroud, a pall, a tomb
Is all she deigns to being desolate.
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