The adopted daughter :: :: University of Virginia Library

He was afar from home. And far were all
His kindred. By his side no father stood,
And no kind mother bent above him now.
The breath a loving sister breathes, fell not
Upon his fevered face. No brother's hand
Pressed to his own the touch of love. No voice
Of friendship murmured in his deafened ears
The fond, sweet accents of the speaking heart
But Death was there! His cold, grave—damps he blew
Upon the young man's brow, and clammy drops
Stood thick among his curly locks. The hand
No brother's own might touch, grew chill as ice
Within a grasp it never felt before.
A dull, deep voice, as of a distant flood,
Spoke where no mortal spoke. It was the voice
Of Death! It was the echo of the tide
That bears all onward to eternity.
Upon the earth, in distant Darien,
A poor sick youth had laid him down to die.
His only couch was the dark native floor;
No pillow bore his head; and on his limbs,
All shivering as the waves of Death dashed in
Upon his soul, no covering was spread.
His face was flung into the humid floor,
Where tropic rains had softened deep the clay,
And dingy streams stained all his pallid cheek.

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His eyes—how mild! His hands—how clutched on high
His dying words—how piercing sad! His cry
For home—how piteous! “Oh! take me home!”
He screamed: “My father! take me home! And oh!
My mother! hearken to thy son! My home!
My hearth! companions gathered fondly there!
Why come ye not beside me? Must I die
In this dark cavern? Must I pass to meet
My Maker from this hurried hut?
Oh! home! dear home! would thou didst hold me now.
Would I could die before my father's feet!
Would I could die within my mother's arms!”
Thus raved the stranger youth, while all around
The uncouth Indians clustered in the wet
Gazed in his haggard face with vacant stares,
And wondered what the phrenzied boy might say.
They held him not, but started at his shrieks;
And as his head sank deeper in the clay,
They raised it not, nor smoothed his quivering limbs,
Nor caught his clutching hands, nor bathed his lips,
As the death-bubbles burst between his teeth.
They knew not of his cry. His words were strange
To those dark children of Grenada's wilds.
And thus he died—died as the stranger dies Alone—alone!
But ah! how different
Was the sweet home that boy had left behind.
From the lone cave in which he met his end!
His was a home of splendor and of wealth,
Where mirrors flashed their lights, and music charmed
The hearth; where gorgeous tapestries were hung
On every side, and where at night the blaze
Of tapers kindled like the day. Along
Its loaded boards of frequent banqueting
Glittered the wine cups—trailed around their sides
As first the glistening serpent threw his coils
Among the sinless bowers of Paradise,

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He was the same Destroyer there that he
Was once in Eden; but alas! the youth
Of that low Isthmus den had heeded not
His fatal sting. He at his father's board
Had learned to love those poisoned cups,
And now the serpent's fangs were in his heart!
Reeling and staggering from his native land,
Plunged in the perils of a foreign shore,
Bounding for joy, he sank in early woe—
Thirsting to make life fast, he found—a grave!
And there they buried him. Beside the road,
The narrow defile through the tangled woods,
Where burning heats descend, and vapors rise
All fœtid with their pestilential damps,
They threw his body in the oozing bogs,
Unshrouded and uncoffined, there to rot!
How many perish thus. What crowds on crowds
Throng the small strip that holds these seas apart,
And as they go leap into drunkard's tombs!
How many of those throngs were taught to taste
The sparkling poison in their youthful homes!
Oh! could that Isthmus speak—could there go up
From its deep glades, its lonely hills, and streams
Its solitary paths, its shaded haunts,
The victim-voices of the drunkard's drink,
Grenada's groves would shiver at the sound,
And Darien's mountains echo fearful groans.
Could all Pacific's shores but join the cry,
Could California's mines and rivers join,
What wails of horror and what warning shrieks
Would pierce the aching ears of Earth and Heaven!
Oh! ye who quaff the brimming cup—who teach
Your children how to thirst for wine—who send
The draught of poison forth to distant lands—
Forget not, as you gaily drink, and count
Your ill-got gains, that your own wandering sons
May lie among the drunken Isthmus dead,
That ye must face before the bar of God'