Page:The Domestic Affections, and Other Poems.pdf/168



Far from his cherish'd friends, his native shore, Banish'd from being—to return no more; There must he die!—within that circling wave, That lonely isle—his prison and his grave!

Lo! thro' the waste, the wilderness of snows, With fainting step, Siberia's exile goes! Homeless and sad, o'er many a polar wild, Where beam, or flower, or verdure, never smil'd Where frost and silence hold their despot-reign, And bind existence in eternal chain! Child of the desert! pilgrim of the gloom! Dark is the path which leads thee to the tomb! While on thy faded cheek, the arctic air Congeals the bitter tear-drop of despair! Yet not, that fate condemns thy closing day, In that stern clime, to shed its parting ray; Not that fair Nature's loveliness and light, No more shall beam enchantment on thy sight;