An Empty Glass.
188
Laving a living shore. An outcast! I?
Who dared to say if? Yet what would I care
To be pariah in this empty world
If still I reigned imperially to him
Ah! that is where it cuts deep, deep, into
The very essence of me. It has come,
The blight my prescience saw while yet the flower
Ravished my senses with its matchless bloom.
Illicit love holds at its very core
The canker that destroys it, and, Oh! well
I knew within the kernel of my mind
That I should some day pay a bitter price
For these dear dreams. Only to think of them
Will sanctify the Hades still to come.
Who dared to say if? Yet what would I care
To be pariah in this empty world
If still I reigned imperially to him
Ah! that is where it cuts deep, deep, into
The very essence of me. It has come,
The blight my prescience saw while yet the flower
Ravished my senses with its matchless bloom.
Illicit love holds at its very core
The canker that destroys it, and, Oh! well
I knew within the kernel of my mind
That I should some day pay a bitter price
For these dear dreams. Only to think of them
Will sanctify the Hades still to come.
Hades? ah! A woman scorned———
Yes, let her tell of Hades, she who knows.
To leave me thus—Oh, coward blow!
Tear out my heartstrings, let the jagged ends
Still quiver on, ay! crush my demon pride
'Gainst any iron wheel of circumstance,
My fortitude would fail not, so I saw
The hand that slew me was the hand I love.
But Max! to stab me with this poisoned blade
Of silence. Just to drop me in the void
Yes, let her tell of Hades, she who knows.
To leave me thus—Oh, coward blow!
Tear out my heartstrings, let the jagged ends
Still quiver on, ay! crush my demon pride
'Gainst any iron wheel of circumstance,
My fortitude would fail not, so I saw
The hand that slew me was the hand I love.
But Max! to stab me with this poisoned blade
Of silence. Just to drop me in the void
