But Mercy besought thee in vain,
From death’s awful brink to recede;
To shun the despair and the pain
Where she is forbidden to plead.
And Pity’s warm tear-drops must roll
The more, that she cannot relume
The clay whence the self-wounded soul
Hath rushed to a suicide’s doom.
How potent, how maddening the love,
O gold, of a mortal must be,
To challenge an arm from above—
To stake earth and heaven for thee!
For Justice to Judgment will call;
And who shall their coming abide,
When wrath the most fearful of all,
“The wrath of the Lamb,” is defied?
[3] This piece originally illustrated an engraving.
[WILLIAM AT SEA.]
Whilst thou art away, where the proud waves are swelling
Beneath thy light bark, ever mindful of thee,
The days of thine absence, at home we are telling,
And counting the hours of our William at sea.
And thou, whether cradled to sleep by the billow,
Or watching the sport of the spray and the foam,
If pensive on deck, or in dreams on thy pillow,
We know hast thy soul rapt with visions of home.