By tardy pressure’s still-increasing weight,
From hardest hearts, confession of distress. 10
Oh, the long, dark approach through years of pain,
Death’s gallery! (might I dare to call it so)
With dismal doubt, and sable terror, hung;
Sick hope’s pale lamp its only glimmering ray:
There, fate my melancholy walk ordain’d,
Forbid self-love itself to flatter, there.
How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!
How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles! 18