For its air is filled with wailing,

And resounds with shrieks of pain; And, it seems, 'midst moral chaos,

That the Godhead rules in vain

In a world where wrong is rampant,
And the right, in anguish found,
With the heel of dire oppression,
Trampled on the bloody ground.

It is well that earthly evils,

Lost amidst life's closing gloom,
Are, in kindest mercy, hidden
By the shadows of the tomb.

It is well the blessed spirits,

In the land without a tear,

See the good, but not the evil,

That they did in blindness here;

And, in peace, can rest for ever,

Lulled by Lethe's listless wave, Seeing not their loved ones' sorrowsSeeing, when they cannot save.

my mother! I am thankful

That you rest in peace on high, Seeing not the tears you cause me, Never hearing when I sigh:

I am thankful that you know not,
Helpless now, beneath the sod,
That your well-intentioned folly
Darkens still my path to God.

Mother, you, from childhood, reared me

In a tinselled world of lies,

Darkly wrapped in clouds of folly,

Charged with gathering storms of sighs;

And, too late, I see its falseness,
Lighted by the fires of fate,

In the furnace of affliction,
When my heart is desolate.

Once, you saw me rise above it—

Rise to nature, truth, and right; Saw me make one struggling effort,

Upward, towards the darkened light;

When, awhile, my heart was lighted
By the 'nobling lamp of Love,
And I sought, with trembling gladness,
Mists of earth to rise above;

And, like Psyche in the cavern,
Went upon my charmèd way ;
Felt the Godlike soul within me
Triumph o'er my baser clay.

Then, O mother, false, and foolish ! You my treasured secret found; Ruthless, took the lamp that led me; Dashed it heedless to the ground!

I myself was weak and wicked,
For I took my troth again;

And I see but retribution,

In a life of ceaseless pain

Ceaseless pain, and degradation,
Sharpened, as when angels fell,
And remembered joys of heaven
Doubled all the pangs of hell.

But I was a simple maiden,

Overmatched in worldly art,

Knowing not the subtle falseness
Of the marriage-making mart.

XIV.

When the lamp of Love was broken,
And my stricken heart was dead;
When Hope lay bleeding in the dust,
And the joy of life had fled;

When I cared not what befell me,
Since the light of life had gone,
And my path seemed lost in darkness—
Darkness darkest where it shone ;

Mother! you, with deep designing, Plunged me deeper in despair; Filled my heart with dark foreboding;

Crushed it with a load of care.

Then I took the cup of fashion ;
Drank it, first, to still my pain ;

But you made me drink it deeply—
Drink it, till it turned my brain,

Till my stricken heart was maddened,
And its darkness seemed to blaze

With a host of bright mirages,
Rising in a golden haze.

Then your fatal work was ended,
And I did the desperate deed:
Plunged but deeper into anguish,
Struggling, vainly, to be freed;

Knowing not the degradation

Of a loved but loveless wifeDegradation, dark and damning, Ending but with ending life.