BY 25700.


If, amid these prison shadows,
These pale lips should breathe their last,

Would my friends regret the summons,
And forgive my guilty past?

Would they know the dire temptations
I had met and nobly braved

Ere the tears in guilty passion
My pale cheeks in torrents laved?

Would they know how oft and earnest
I had plead before the throne

For the place my crime made vacant
In the bosom of my own?

Would these hours of retribution
Prove sufficient for my sin?