And rises from that mockery of prayer
To hate some brother-debtor in despair.”
From what deep fountains of suffering must these lines have been drawn! What days, weeks, months of deferred hope, of doubt, and of final despair are recorded here!
What life-drops from the minstrel wrung
Have gushed with every word?
The mother at length ceases, and the spirited girl shrinking from the picture of life which has been presented to her, thus replies:—
“If this be so, then mother, let me die
Ere yet the glow hath faded from my sky!
Let me die young; before the holy trust,
In human kindness crumbles into dust;