"Some say there's wildness in my eyes, and others deem me crazed,
They, trembling, turn and shun my path—for which let Heaven be praised!
They say my words are blasphemy—they marvel at my fate,
When 'tis my happiness to know they pity not, but hate.
"My father fell from peace and wealth the day that I was born—
My mother died, and he became his fellow-gambler's scorn;
I know not where he lived or died—I never heard his name—
An orphan in a workhouse, I was thought a child of shame.
"Some friend by blood had lodged me there, and bought my keeper too,
Who pledged his oath he would conceal what of my tale he knew.
Death came to him—he called on me the secret to unfold,
But died while he was uttering the little I have told.
"My soul was proud, nor brooked restraint—was proud, and I was young;
And with an eager joyancy I heard his flattering tongue
Proclaim me not of beggars born—yea, as he speaking died,
I—greedy—mad to know the rest—stood cursing by his side.
"I looked upon the homely garb that told my dwelling-place—
It hung upon me heavily—a token of disgrace!
I fled the house—I went to sea—was by a wretch impressed,
The stamp of whose brutality is printed on my breast.
"Like vilest slave he fettered me, my flesh the irons tore—
Scourged, mocked, and worse than buried me upon a lifeless shore,
Where human foot had never trod—upon a barren rock,
Whose caves ne'er echoed to a sound save billows as they broke.
"'Twas midnight; but the morning came. I looked upon the sea,
And a melancholy wilderness its waters were to me;
The heavens were black as yonder cloud that rolls beneath our feet,
While neither land nor living thing my eager eyes could meet.
"I naked sat upon the rock; I trembled—strove to pray;
Thrice did I see a distant sail, and thrice they bore away.
My brain with hunger maddening, as the steed the battle braves,
Headlong I plunged from the bare rock and buffeted the waves.
"Methought I saw a vessel near, and bitter were my screams,
But they died within me echoless as voices in our dreams;
For the winds were howling round me, and the suffocating gush
Of briny horrors rioted, the cry of death to crush.
"My senses fled. I lifelessly upon the ocean slept;
And when to consciousness I woke, a form before me wept.
Her face was beautiful as night; but by her side there stood
A group, whose savage glances were more dismal than the flood.