Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell
In this vast lazar-house of many woes?
Where laughter is not mirth, nor thoughts the mind,
Nor words a language, nor even men mankind;
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell—
For we are crowded in our solitude—
Many, but each, divided by the wall,
Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;
While all can hear, none heeds his neighbors call—
None! save that one, the veriest wretch of all,
Who was not made to be the mate of these,
Nor bound between distraction and disease.
Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here?
Who have debased me in the minds of men,
Debarring me the usage of my own,
Blighting my life in best of its career,
Branding my thoughts, as things to shun and fear?
Would I not pay them back those pangs again,
And teach them inward sorrow's stifled groan?
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress,
Which undermines our stoical success?
No! still too proud to be vindictive, I
Have pardoned tyrant's insults, and would die
Rather than be vindictive—yes, I weed all bitterness
From out my breast; it hath no business there.
I once was quick in feeling—that is o'er—
My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd
My brains against these bars, as the sun flash'd
In mockery through them—if I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words, 'tis that I would not die
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie
Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame
Stamp madness deep into my memory,
And woo compassion to a blighted name,
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.
No, it shall be immortal!—and I make
A future temple of my present cell.”
FOOTNOTES:
[D] Lord Byron, in his travels, found in the library at Ferrara the letters of Tasso, and saw the cell in the hospital at St. Ann's, where Tasso was confined. His enemies charged him with insanity, and threw him into this prison. The manner of treating insane persons in the Old World has been awfully cruel, so far as history gives any clue to the subject. Byron's Lament of Tasso is, no doubt, correct; but this is no reason why in this enlightened age, in a Christian country like ours, that lunatics should be treated as you would treat a mad dog or mad bear.
[TESTIMONIALS.]
This is to certify that the Rev. Hiram Chase, a supernumerary member of the Troy Annual Conference of the M.E. Church, resided at Saratoga Springs for one year preceding the spring of 1867; that at the session of his Conference, held that spring, he took an effective relation, and, at the request of the Catharine Street church, Saratoga Springs, was appointed its pastor, and that he faithfully and efficiently discharged the duties of his pastorate—facts, these, which speak for themselves regarding both his mental and his moral status.
SAMUEL MEREDITH,
P.E., Albany District, Troy Conference.
Albany, N.Y., Aug. 12, 1868.