Smiling with awful irony had kept

Till life grew sweeter,—that my god was clay,

That 'neath thy strength a lurking weakness lay;

That thou, whom I had deemed a man of men

Faulty, as great men are, but with no taint

Of baseness,—with those faults that shew the saint

Of after days, perhaps,—wert even then

When first I loved thee but a spreading tree

Whose leaves shewed not its roots' deformity;

[Pg 36]

I should not weep, for there are wounds that lie

Too deep for tears,—and Death is but a friend

Who loves too dearly, and the parting end

Of Love's joy-day a paltry pain, a cry

To God, then peace,—beside the torturing grief

When honor dies, and trust, and soul's belief.

Travellers have told that in the Java isles

The upas-tree breathes its dread vapor out

Into the air; there needs no hand about

Its branches for the poison's deadly wiles

 Prev. P 26/57 next