GOLDEN HAIR.
A head of golden hair,
With many a silken fold;
A face as beautiful as e’er
Was wrought in human mould;
An eye as blue as ever
Italia’s skies can be,
That shone as stars of heaven
In soul-lit purity;
A form that tranced the vision;
A matchless, perfect grace
Of a life all pure and God-like
Lighting the sweet, fair face;
A voice as low and silv’ry
As flutes at eventime,
Or trill of harps Æolian,
Tender and so divine;
A head of golden hair,
Haunting my soul alway,
In the silent hours of dreamland,
Or blaze of noontide day.
Yet vain are all thy dreamings,
O heart! A year ago
We laid that head so golden
Under the daisies low.
THE CONVICT.
Frenzied by the destroying curse of drink,
In fury uncontrolled I struck him down;
The insult was bitter, and I went mad—insane—
And with one fell blow slew him, and fled the town.
In a moment I was sobered, and realized
The awful deed my savage hand had done,
And a dreadful terror on my senses fell;
Before arrest, stern punishment had begun.
Oh! the horror of that moment when I realized
That I my fellow man, once friend, had slain;
That I was lost forever and for evermore,
And my brow burned deep by the damning brand of Cain.
“Lost! lost!” I cried in agony to heaven.
Demoniac laughter on my pained ear fell—
The answer to my prayer came not from heaven;
It seemed to rise from lurid voids of hell.