XIX.
His withered prospects blacken--wounds await--
The grave grows sunlight to his darker fate.
All now is gall and bitterness within,
And thoughts, once sternly pure, half yield to sin.
His sickened soul, in all its native pride,
Swells 'neath the breast that tattered vestments hide
Disdained, disdaining; while men flourish, he
Still stands a stately though a withered tree.
But, Heavens! the agony of the moment when
Suspicion stamped the smiles of other men;
When friends glanced _doubts_, and proudly prudent grew,
His counsellors, and his accusers too!
XX.
Picture his pain, his misery, when first
His growing wants their proud concealment burst;
When the first tears start from his stubborn soul.
Big, burning, solitary drops, that roll
Down his pale cheek--the momentary gush
Of human weakness--till the whirlwind rush
Of pride, of shame, had dashed them from his eye,
And his swollen heart heaved mad with agony!
Then, then the pain--the infinity of feeling--
Words fail to paint its anguish. Reason, reeling,
Staggered with torture through his burning brain,
While his teeth gnashed with bitterness and pain;
Reflection grew a scorpion, speech had fled,
And all but madness and despair were dead.
XXI.
He slept to dream of death, or worse than death;
For death were bliss, and the convulsive wrath
Of living torture peace, to the dread weight
That pressed upon sensation, while the light
Of reason gleamed but horror, and strange hosts
Of hideous phantasies, like threatening ghosts.
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