For I always loved the sunny fields and the sweet, sweet flowers, And longed to be pure once again like them, in my better hours. But after I first had fallen the devil opened my eyes, And I saw that the world knew my shame, and I hadn't the heart to rise; So I gave up trying to be good, and sank down lower in sin, Tho' the thought of poor dead mother made me always hate it within. Oh, many's the night that I've wandered about thro' rain and snow, Wandered about in the street, and didn't know where to go; And I've often crept to the river and looked at it, still and black, And thought how every one spurned me-but something held me back. I remember how once, when I stopped, half-dead, one rainy day, To rest on his steps for a moment, the servants drove me away; Drove me away like a dog from the door of the man for whom, O God! I had given up all in this world and beyond the tomb. But don't weep at my story, good lady; I'm not worth it living or dead! Ha, ha! I'm not frightened of Death, nor the devils that dance round my bed: There cannot be any hell deeper nor fuller of devils and strife Than the hell that burns in my heart, and the fire that eats out life. A MOOD. As some great cloud upon a mountain's breast, And blighting them, so ever one dark thought Is ever at my side, whose icy touch Freezes my warmest thoughts, and makes them hang I see his image in the restless sea That gnaws the land; and on the towering top, I see his footsteps in the lonely wild, When all the world is shrouded in the gloom That thou-thou, too—must soon be dust again, That shall come after thee?" I even hear His voice amid the voices of my friends, Harsh, taunting me with death, and dreams of death. And, when I gaze in rapture on the face Of whom I love, he casts a hideous light, That lets me see, behind the sweet, warm flesh, The lightless skull, and o'er the rounded form Oh, would that I could break the cursed chain That binds this monster to me! for my life They merged into the dark, and all was still- The demon still Was at my side in after-years, and threw A shade on every friendship, as a cloud Floats past the sun and dims the flowering fields. Oft have I wondered at the woodland stream That dances on, through dappled-lighted woods, O'er mossy pebbles glinting in the sun, Like eyes of merry children round the fire, |