University of Virginia Library

O Love! the holiest name in heaven,
The purest, sweetest thing below!
Why are thy joys to torture given?
Thy rapture's unto wailing woe?
Why should thy fondest votaries prove
Faithful even unto death in vain?
Or why, despite thy vows, O Love!
Should all thy blisses close in pain?

No voice was heard—no form was seen
Within the churchyard's lonely bound,
And Dion, from his weedy screen,
Rose mournfully and gazed around.
Long had he watched each lone—lone hour
For some faint note of joy or grief,
'Till destiny's most dreaded power
To him had almost been relief.
But nought allayed his dread suspense
'Till Inez and her murderess
Were borne to that lone mansion whence
No tenant ever found egress.
Then flashed the whole revealment dire
O'er Dion's burning heart and brain,
And death became a wild desire,
A refuge from his penal pain.
With rolling eye, and brow of gloom,
And pallid cheek and trembling tread,
Dion approached the robbing tomb
Where Inez slept among the dead,
And bowed his throbbing head upon
The dark funereal tablet stone
Despairingly, while forth his tears
Unbidden gushed.—“In youthful years
“I little recked of fate like this;
“I thought the world was full of bliss
“And man most blessed in life—Alas!
“I am not now the thing I was;
“And nought remains for me to dare
“But misery, madness and despair;
“The darkness of a breast that bleeds
“O'er the wild thought of damning deeds,
“The doom that never will depart
“From the dim mansions of the heart.”
He drew his poniard, looked on high
For the last time with gleaming eye,
Then laid him down the grave beside
And clove his heart! The purple tide
Gushed like a torrent and—he died!
The last glance of his spirit turning
To her for whom his heart was burning