Classic Poem

Oh ! what is friendship, sympathy, or love?
I have no ties in common with my race,
For from my cradle I have learned to feel
The bitter truth — " there is no trust in man. "
Yes, e'en my Mother — she who gave me birth —
Could from her breast the helpless infant spurn,
And when I smiled and stretched my tiny arms
To clasp her neck, she did not smile again,
But thrust me from her, and with haughty air
Would bid me to the nursery away.
Thus were my young affections in the bud
By coldness withered, deadened by neglect.
One morning I had wandered from my home
To a green bank, and sat me down to weep,
When suddenly I looked upon a flower —
Its folded leaves just opening to the breeze
That careless sported with its artless smile, —
Then passed it by. As o'er its form I knelt,
And kissed its velvet cheek with tears empearled,
Alas! I thought, its fate how like my own! —
I loved it for its very loneliness —
And when it drooped beneath a scorching sun
My heart was wrung with anguish; to my lips
A murmur rose, the murmur of despair.
The only object I had ever loved
Was lost, and I again was desolate.
I sought the quiet mansion of the dead —
And as I gazed in thoughtful mood around,
I envied those who slept forgotten there.
Forgotten! yes, the world can soon forget —
A death-bed scene but short impression makes —
We gather round the couch of those we love
(If love indeed e'er grew on human soil);
We madly press the clay-cold lips with ours,
We mourn a being perished from the shrine
Where we had held it in idolatry.
Imaginary woes oppress us most,
But real grief comes not with real cause.
Passion enslaves — Ambition rules the mind,
And leaves but space for momentary tears.
There came a voice of sorrow on mine ear; —
I paused, I listened; — by a moss-grown grave
A gentle girl was kneeling — on her breast
Her trembling hands in agony were clasped,
Her eyes uplifted to the cloudless heaven,
Glanced hurriedly among the starry train,
As if, reflected in their pale soft light,
A mother's look of tenderness she read.
And who, I thought, when I shall cease to be,
Will shed one tear o'er Julian's lonely grave?
She was an orphan — I was by her side —
And on that sacred spot to her I breathed
The first, the only vow that e'er my heart
Had dared to utter in a mortal ear —
My cup of bliss was full, yet from my lips
Was dashed ere I had half its sweetness drained.
She died as die the innocent, the good;
And as her gentle spirit died away —
Julian, she murmured, we shall meet again, —
Then closed her eyes to sleep the sleep of death.
Hear me, ye silent watchers of the night!
To you alone my sad complaint I make; —
Ye rocks! that echo back my plaintive moans,
Hide in your caverns deep my secret grief!
Farewell to hope, to joy, to life farewell,
Fate, thou hast done thy work! thy victim now,
I only ask a quick release from earth;
Oh! grant it, Heaven, in mercy to a heart
Whose every chord is broken, and who sighs
To find at last a resting-place in peace!