Those violated forms have been
The pride of many a flowering green;
And still the virgin bosom heaves
With daisy meads and dewy leaves.
But stygian darkness reigns within
The river of death from the founts of sin;
And one prophetic water rolls
Its gas-lit surface for their souls.
I will not hide the tragic sight—
Those drown’d black locks, those dead lips white,
Will rise from out the slimy flood,
And cry before God’s throne for blood!
Those stiffened limbs, that swollen face,—
Pollution’s last and best embrace,
Will call, as such a picture can,
For retribution upon man.
Hark! how their feeble laughter rings,
While still the ballad-monger sings,
And flatters their unhappy breasts
With poisonous words and pungent jests.
O how would every daisy blush
To see them ’mid that earthy crush!
O dumb would be the evening thrush,
And hoary look the hawthorn bush!
The meadows of their infancy
Would shrink from them, and every tree,
And every little laughing spot,
Would hush itself and know them not.
Precursor to what black despairs
Was that child’s face which once was theirs!
And O to what a world of guile
Was herald that young angel smile!
That face which to a father’s eye
Was balm for all anxiety;
That smile which to a mother’s heart
Went swifter than the swallow’s dart!
O happy homes! that still they know
At intervals, with what a woe
Would ye look on them, dim and strange,
Suffering worse than winter change!