And sterner hearts alone may feel * If solitude succeed to grief, Might thank the pang that made it less. We loathe what none are left to share : It is as if the desart-bird, 39 Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream The waste of feelings unemployed. * «Father! thy days have passed in peace, Mid counted beads, and countless prayer; "To bid the sins of others cease, Thyself without a crime or care, "Save transient ills that all must bear, "Has been thy lot from youth to age; ་་ And thou wilt bless thee from the rage << Whose secret sins and sorrows rest My days, though few, have passed below « In much of joy, but more of woe; "Yet still in hours of love or strife, . I've 'scaped the weariness of life : ་་ Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, I loathed the languor of repose. «Now nothing left to love or hate, "No more with hope or pride elate, ་་ I'd rather be the thing that crawls "Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, « Than pass my dull, unvarying days, Condemned to meditate and gaze. ་་ ་ Yet, lurks a wish within my breast "For rest-but not to feel 'tis rest. "Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom; ་ Though better to have died with those, «My spirit shrunk not to sustain « The searching throes of ceaseless pain; "Of ancient fool and modern knave : ་་ Had danger wooed me on to move "The slave of glory, not of love. k «To such let others carve their way, « For high renown, or hireling pay : But place again before my eyes Aught that I deem a worthy prize; << The maid I love, the man I hate, « And I will hunt the steps of fate, "To save or slay, as these require, ་ Through rending steel, and rolling fire; «Nor need'st thou doubt this speech from one "Who would but do-what he hath done. « Death is but what the haughty brave, « The weak must bear, the wretch must crave; "Then let life go to him who gave : I have not quailed to danger's brow « When high and happy-need I now? I loved her, friar! nay, adored«But these are words that all can use "I proved it more in deed than word; "There's blood upon that dinted sword, « A stain its steel can never lose : . 'Twas shed for her, who died for me, « It warmed the heart of one abhorred : Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee, Thou wilt absolve me from the deed, " "Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. " I loved her-love will find its way Through paths where wolves would fear to prey, «And if it dares enough, 'twere hard «<lf passion met not some reward- ་་ ་ Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain « I wish she had not loved again. «She died-I dare not tell thee how; « But look-'tis written on my brow! There read of Cain the curse and crime, « In characters unworn by time : " Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause ; Not mine the act, though I the cause. "Yet did he but what I had done ་ Had she been false to more than one. "Faithless to him, he gave the blow; «But true to me, I laid him low: « Howe'er deserved her doom might be, «Her treachery was truth to me; ་་ To me she gave her heart, that all Which tyranny can ne'er enthrall ; « And I, alas! too late to save! ་་ Yet all I then could give, I gave, 'Twas some relief, our foe a grave. "His death sits lightly;-but her fate «Has made me—what thou well may'st hate. His doom was sealed-he knew it well, « Warned by the voice of stern Tabeer, ་་ Deep in whose darkly boding ear The deathshot pealed of murder near, As filed the troop to where they fell! << He died too in the battle broil, « A time that heeds nor pain nor toil; |