Page:Poems Blind.djvu/79

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
to hope.
75
The walks of martyrdom! Oh, crown his brows
With buds of those full summers of the race!

Mourns there an aged mother, lying low
Upon the lowly grave,
Round which the autumn moans her mournful dirge,
And shivering cadence of the shrunken leaves
Keeps saddest measure with the wailing wind;
While the pale glimm'rings of the waning moon
Fall in cold tears upon the unknown tomb,
Beneath whose sod, washed by the ghastly mists,
Lies he, her one sole flower, that on the breast
Of life bloomed for her all the days and nights;
In the midsummer of his lusty life
Devoured by that grim beast, whose reeking breath
Is saturated with the blood of man—
The twin of pestilence—the foul firstborn
Of her who spinneth in the nether gloom
The phantasms that turn mad the brains of men,