That drew such awful visitations down. 

 While studying thus the wherefore, with vain toil 

 Of painful cogitation, lo! a voice 

 Hollow and hoarse, as from the mouldering tomb, 

 "Perish the day in which I saw the light! 

 The day when first my mother's nursing care 

 Sheltered my helplessness. Let it not come 

 Into the number of the joyful months, 

 Let blackness stain it and the shades of death 

 Forever terrify it. 

 For it cut 

 Not off as an untimely birth my span, 

 Nor let me sleep where the poor prisoners hear 

 No more the oppressor, where the wicked cease 

 From troubling and the weary are at rest. 

 Now as the roar of waves my sorrows swell, 

 And sighs like tides burst forth till I forget 

 To eat my bread. That which I greatly feared 

 Hath come upon me. Not in heedless pride 

 Nor wrapped in arrogance of full content 

 Prev. P 26/285 next