Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/189

Rh Of awful agony pass from my breast?
 * This suffering racking me must be the worst

Of mental pain that man can live and bear!
 * Another pang would kill me; and to die,

And let her know the depth of my despair—
 * Better live on in endless agony!

False! false! O God of heaven! is this so?
 * And has another kissed that brow so bright,

And held those tiny hands of moulded snow,
 * And drank from those soft eyes their dewy light!

Peace, tortured soul! why did I dream of her
 * For years and years before I saw her face?

Why did my fiery soul its proud depths stir
 * To give to her alone its hallowed place?

Burn on, fierce fire, in my consuming heart
 * Till every thought of her—till every dream

And every hope in which she had a part
 * Have perished in thy fearful, molten stream.

Ashes! ashes! ashes alone are left!
 * Each feeling and each passion have expired!

The fire of this day's anguish has bereft
 * My heart of every thing it once desired.

Tears? no, my tears are at their fountain dried—
 * It sends no dew to cool my burning eyes;

The only passion that remains is pride,
 * And that upon my brow in mockery lies.

Now I can taunt her!I can look unmoved
 * Upon the loveliness a star might wear!

Can mock her with the deathless love thus proved,
 * While writhing sneers my lip and brow shall bear.

And life, henceforth, shall be a hollow sound—
 * The springs which all its arrogance control—

Its emptiness—its nothingness I've found!
 * No gentle thrill shall ever move my soul!