Whose tides of flame and darkness gloom
Amid the spirit’s stagnant air—
More fearful than the damn’d one’s tomb
And withering as despair.
Oh! God why was I chos’n for such?
I who until that fearful hour—
Ah! would not e’en too wildly touch
The summer’s very humblest flower.
The little bird whose rain-bow wing
I saw, in spring time’s roseate eves,