Implant their poisonous venom, choosing thus
To be themselves their executioners,
Than fall upon the spear of might and wrong.
Such do I fear myself: That I have been,
In happier days, a lover of my kind—
Heart as capacious, hand as firm and true,
As ever graced the proudest in the land.
I have been thus—Answer! what am I now?
I have found coldness where I looked for love—
Ingrates ’mid friends—the half averted head,