Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/142

132 They do not see how cruel Death

Comes on, their loving hearts to part:

One feels not now the gasping breath,

The rending of the earth-bound heart,—

The soul's and body's agony,

Ere she may sink to her repose.

The sad survivor cannot see

The grave above his darling close;

Nor how, despairing and alone,

He then must wear his life away;

And linger, feebly toiling on,

And fainting, sink into decay.

Oh, Youth may listen patiently,

While sad Experience tells her tale;

But Doubt sits smiling in his eye,

For ardent Hope will still prevail!

He hears how feeble Pleasure dies,

By guilt destroyed, and pain and woe;

He turns to Hope—and she replies,

"Believe it not—it is not so!"

"Oh, heed her not!" Experience says,

"For thus she whispered once to me;