Reading the Will
Slip the bandages, turn and rise,
Speak, refuting the blot on her!
There is no sign. Does he hear them say
She has it all, and "We know how
She wiled it from him, but let us stay
To hear the reading—it's coming now"?
Slowly, slowly, the red seals break.
Watch them, marking his ev'ry word—
How in life he had willed to make
This one wretched, and that preferred.
"I will and I choose that such an one
Should have my all!" O woe, O woe!
Human potency, what has it done
To help men's souls in the shades below?
Does he remember his power past,
How that he made men smile or weep,—
Helpless to hold his riches fast,
Fighting with blows men strike in sleep?
