Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/30

20 Then comes the day that knows no morrow,

And death succeeds to long despair.

So speaks experience, sage and hoary;

I see it plainly, know it well,

Like one who, having read a story,

Each incident therein can tell.

Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire

Of that forsaken child;

And nought his relics can inspire

Save memories, sin-defiled.

I, who sat by his wife's death-bed,

I, who his daughter loved,

Could almost curse the guilty dead,

For woes, the guiltless proved.

And heaven did curse—they found him laid,

When crime for wrath was rife,

Cold—with the suicidal blade

Clutched in his desperate gripe.

'Twas near that long deserted hut,

Which in the wood decays,

Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root,

And lopped his desperate days.

You know the spot, where three black trees,

Lift up their branches fell,