Poetry > Course of time

BOOK EIGHTH.
243
Dishonest words : “Her favour was his life,
His heaven; her frown, his woe, his night, his death.”
With turgid phrase, thus wove in flattery’s loom,
He on her womanish nature won, and age
Suspicionless; and ruined, and forsook :
For he a chosen villain was at heart,
And capable of deeds that durst not seek
Repentance. Soon her father saw her shame;
His heart grew stone, he drove her forth to want
And wintry winds, and with a horrid curse
Pursued her ear, forbidding all return.
Upon a hoary cliff that watched the sea,,
Her babe was found—dead. On its little cheek,
The tear that nature bade it weep, had turned
An ice-drop, sparkling in the morning beam :
And to the turf its helpless hands were frozen.
For she, the woeful mother, had gone mad,
And laid it down, regardless of its fate,
And of her own. Yet had she many days
Of sorrow in the world, but never wept.
She lived on alms, and carried in her hand
Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring.
When any asked the cause, she smiled and said,
They were her sisters, and would come and watch
Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke
Of her deceiver, father, mother, home,
Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God ; but still
In lonely places walked, and ever gazed
Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them;