“It is his victim,” this alone is pain enough to know.
What’s left thee now, poor orphan heart, that entered life so gay,
And fondly dreamed ’twould all have proved a bright and cloudless way?
Where are the joys that wreathed thee round in childhood’s reckless hours?
’Twas thine to watch them droop and fall, like pale, decaying flowers.
Where is thy home of love? Ah! well, that thought may cloud thy brow—
The dear loved home that sheltered thee is claimed by strangers now;
And does that echoing hall repeat no well-remembered tone?
The stranger’s voice, the stranger’s step have there familiar grown.
And where the joyous faces now that circled round the hearth?