Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/25

Rh Full oft have I impatience proved

To see how long, her still delight

Would find a theme in reverie.

Out on the lawn, or where the trees

Let in the lustre fitfully,

As their boughs parted momently,

To the soft, languid, summer breeze.

Alas! that she should e'er have flung

Those pure, though lonely joys away—

Deceived by false and guileful tongue,

She gave her hand, then suffered wrong;

Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young,

And died of grief by slow decay.

Open that casket—look how bright

Those jewels flash upon the sight;

The brilliants have not lost a ray

Of lustre, since her wedding day.

But see—upon that pearly chain—

How dim lies time's discolouring stain!

I've seen that by her daughter worn:

For, e'er she died, a child was born;

A child that ne'er its mother knew,

That lone, and almost friendless grew;

For, ever, when its step drew nigh,

Averted was the father's eye;

And then, a life impure and wild

Made him a stranger to his child;

Absorbed in vice, he little cared

On what she did, or how she fared.