THE STAKE. 
And I felt, where he had stood 
Leaning by that burning wood, 
But the cool breeze o’er me playing, 
And the dim blue flame decaying. 
Hurrying footsteps pass’d away, 
And I turn’d to go as they: 
Whither? I nor car’d nor knew, 
Life had nothing left for me ; 
Heaven, beneath its vault of blue, 
Held no place where hope might be. 
Time might measure endless space, 
And the vast world might roll on, 
I should see no human face 
My cold gaze could rest upon. 
Would that in the deep mid sea, 
Passionate Sappho, like to thee, 
I might fling this fever’d breast, 
By the billows rock’d to rest ! 
Or like her, the Italian child, 
From her buried home exiled ; 
And shut out, by the dark fate 
Laid upon her sealed eyes: 
A sad creature, isolate 
From sweet human sympathies, 
Drop into the lulling wave, 
And its blue depths be my grave ! 
But thy fetter, Truth, is on me, 
And thy stern grasp is upon me ; 
And enough of thee I know 
Just to be held back to woe. 
My heart is as an open grave, 
Its early-perish’d flowers entombing ; 
While o’er its edges darkly wave 
Pale rue and nightshade’s deadly blooming ; 
And time, that wastes things mean and brave, 
Ruins and tomb is both consuming. 
May but, of all those odoriferous things, 
Some scent be borne unto the spirit that flings 
(In passing) o’er the spot the shadow of its wings. 
