My creed should have redeemed me from repenting; But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting

Met love excited by far other seeming

Until the end was gained :-as one from dreaming Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state Such as it is.

"O thou, my spirit's mate!

Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,
Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes
If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see,
My secret groans must be unheard by thee;
Thou wouldst weep tears, bitter as blood, to know
Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe.

Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed
In friendship, let me not that name degrade,
By placing on your hearts the secret load
Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road
To peace, and that is truth, which follow ye!
Love sometimes leads astray to misery.
Yet think not, tho' subdued (and I may well
Say that I am subdued)—that the full bell
Within me would infect the untainted breast
Of sacred nature with its own unrest;
As some perverted beings think to find
In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind

Which scorn or hate hath wounded.—O, how vain ! The dagger heals not, but may rend again.

Believe that I am ever still the same

In creed as in resolve; and what may tame

My heart, must leave the understanding free,
Or all would sink under this agony.-

Nor dream that I will join the vulgar eye,
Or with my silence sanction tyranny,

с

Or seek a moment's shelter from my pain
In any madness which the world calls gain;
Ambition, or revenge, or thoughts as stern.
As those which make me what I am, or turn
To avarice or misanthrophy or lust.
Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!
'Till then the dungeon may demand its prey;
And Poverty and Shame may meet and say,
Halting beside me in the public way,—

That love-devoted youth is ours: let's sit
Beside him he may live some six months yet.'-
Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,
May ask some willing victim; or ye, friends,
May fall under some sorrow, which this heart
Or hand may share, or vanquish, or avert;
I am prepared, in truth, with no proud joy,
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy
I did devote to justice, and to love,
My nature, worthless now.

"I must remove

A veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside!
O! palid as Death's dedicated bride,
Thou mockery, which art sitting by my side,
Am I not wan like thee? At the grave's call
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball,
To meet the ghastly paramour, for whom
Thou hast deserted me, and made the tomb
Thy bridal bed. But I beside thy feet
Will lie, and watch ye from my winding-sheet
Thus-wide awake tho' dead-Yet stay, O, stay!
Go not so soon-I know not what I say-
Hear but my reasons-I am mad, I fear,
My fancy is o'er wrought-thou art not here.

-but thou art gone

Pale art thou, 'tis most true-
Thy work is finished; I am left alone.

"Nay, was it I who woced thee to this breast,
Which like a serpent thou envenomest
As in repayment of the warmth it lent?

Didst thou not seek mé for thine own content?
Did not thy love awaken mine? thought
That thou wert she who said You kiss me not
Ever; I fear you do not love me now.'

In truth I loved even to my overthrow

Her, who would fain forget these words, but they Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.

*

*

*

*

*

"You say that I am proud; that when I speak, My lip is tortured with the wrongs, which break The spirit it expresses.-Never one

Humbled himself before, as I have done!

Even the instinctive worm on which we tread

Turns, tho' it wound not-then, with prostrate head,
Sinks in the dust, and writhes like me-and dies:
-No:-wears a living death of agonies!

As the slow shadows of the pointed grass
Mark the eternal periods, its pangs pass,
Slow, ever-moving, making moments be
As mine seem,-each an immortality!

"That you had never seen me never heard
My voice! and, more than all, had ne'er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace!

That
your eyes ne'er bad lied love in my face!
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root

With mine own quivering fingers! so that ne'er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there,
To disunite in horror! These were not

With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought,
Which flits athwart our musings, but can find

No rest within a pure and gentle mind

Thou sealed'st them with many a bare broad word,
And seard'st my memory o'er them,-for I heard
And can forget not-they were ministered,
One after one, those curses. Mix them up

Like self-destroying poisons in one cup;

And they will make one blessing, which thou ne'er

Didst imprecate for on me

-death!

"It were

A cruel punishment for one most cruel,

If such can love, to make that love the fuel
Of the mind's hell-hate, scorn, remorse, despair:
But me, whose heart a stranger's tear might wear,
As water-drops the sandy fountain stone;

Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan
For woes which others hear not, and could see
The absent with the glass of phantasy,
And near the poor and trampled sit and weep,
Following the captive to his dungeon deep;
Me, who am as a nerve o'er which do creep
The else-unfelt oppressions of this earth,
And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,
When all beside was cold:-that thou on me
Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony-
Such curses are from lips once eloquent

With love's too partial praise! Let none relent
Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name

Henceforth, if an example for the same

They seek:-for thou on me lookedst so and so,
And didst speak thus and thus. I live to shew
How much men bear, and die not.

With the grimace of hate, how horrible

It was to meet my love when thine grew less;

Thou wilt admire how I could e'er address

Such features to love's work....This taunt, tho' true,
(For indeed nature nor in form nor hue
Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship)
Shall not be thy defence: for since thy life

Met mine first, years long past,—since thine eye kindled
With soft fire under mine,-I have not dwindled,

Nor changed in mind, or body, or in aught

But as love changes what it loveth not
After long years and many trials.

*

*

*

"How vain

Are words! I thought never to speak again,
Not even in secret, not to my own heart-
But from my lips the unwilling accents start,,
And from my pen the words flow as I write,
Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears-my sight
Is dim to see that charactered in vain,

On this unfeeling leaf, which burns the brain
And eats into it, blotting all things fair,

And wise and good, which time had written there.
Those who inflict must suffer, for 'they see
The work of their own hearts, and that must be
Our chastisement or recompense.-O child!
I would that thine were like to be more mild
For both our wretched sakes,-for thine the most,
Who feel'st already all that thou hast lost,

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