Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed

Of Sin delirious with its dread:

But these were horrors—this was woe

Unmixed with such—but sure and slow:

He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yet so tender—kind,

And grieved for those he left behind;

With all the while a cheek whose bloom190

190

Was as a mockery of the tomb,

Whose tints as gently sunk away

As a departing rainbow's ray;

An eye of most transparent light,

That almost made the dungeon bright;[22]

[22]

And not a word of murmur—not

A groan o'er his untimely lot,—

A little talk of better days,

 Prev. P 24/1007 next