Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/44

Rh

"Oh! better far it is to mount yon pile,    "And stretch my shuddering form beside the dead, "Than with a torturing effort strive to smile,    "And hide the bitter tears in silence shed— "That state of loathed existence now is o'er, "And I shall shrink from his embrace no more.

"The tyrant sleeps death's last and endless sleep,    "Yet does his power beyond the grave extend, "And I this most unholy law must keep,    "And to the priest's unrighteous mandate bend, "Or live an outcast—reft of queenly state— "A beggar lost, despised, and desolate.

"Daughter and heiress of a princely line,    "From my proud birth-right I disdain to stoop; "Better it is to die, than inly pine,    "And feel the soul, the towering spirit, droop "Beneath the cruel toil, the years of pain, "The lost, degraded widow must sustain.