245 



LINES. 



Judge her not hardly ! Ye to whom the cup 

 Of life hath brought no poison, o'er whose way 

 The Spirits of Despair have flung no shade. 



Oh ! there are times, and may ye never know 

 Their strength of desolation, when the soul. 

 Bowed low with agony, surveys the world — 

 The fair and beautiful world — as one wide blank 

 Most verdureless and joyless. Life seems a weight 

 Too grievous to be borne, and the dark day 

 That first looked on it, in our gloomy hour. 

 Is thought on to be wept. The very joys 

 Of our companion-beings have no charm : 

 The loveliness of youth; the gentle voice 

 Of all confiding woman, lose their spell 

 And the glad burst of childhood's innocent glee 

 Wring heavy drops from our burning eyes 

 Which their own throbbing cells absorb again. 

 We think on what we were — Yet Envy quails 

 Before an infant's trusting smile of love. 



Judge her not hardly ! round that lifeless form 



A mother's arm has oft, endearing, twined : 



On that cold brow a father's lips have pressed 



Sweet tokens of affection : that fair form 



So delicately graceful even in death 



Was worshipped as an idol — yet betrayed. 



Then came the world's dark scorn ; the stricken deer 



Strayed, herd-abandoned, 'till sharp misery wrenched 



Her reason from its dwelling, and her brain 



Grew burning with the pictures of the dead 



Whose toil of life is o'er. She flung away 



A life which proved a hell, while he who wrought 



Ruin on lovliness, may walk the earth 



With few to mark the brand upon her brow. 



Franz. 



