Oh demon waiting o'er the grave,
To plead against thy power were vain;
Turning from heaven, I blindly gave
My soul to everlasting pain.
Take me and torture me at will—
My hands I will not lift for aye,
The flames that die not, nor can kill,
To wind from my poor heart away;
For I have borne and still can bear
The pain of sorrow's wretched storms,
But, love, how shall I hush the prayer
For the sweet shelter of thy arms?

Oh home! no more your dimpling rills
Would cool this forehead from its pain;
Flowers, blowing down the western hills,
Ye may not fill my lap again;
Time, speed with wilder, stormier wings,
The smile that lights my lip to-day,
As like the ungenial fire that springs
From the pale ashes of decay.
O! lost, like some fair planet-beam,
In clouds that tempests over-brim,
How could the splendor of a dream
Make all the future life so dim!