Poems (Cary)/Doomed

DOOMED.

Oh demon waiting o'er the grave,
To plead against thy power were vain;
Turning from heaven, I blindly gave
My soul to everlasting pain.
Take me and torture me at will—
My hands I will not lift for aye,
The flames that die not, nor can kill,
To wind from my poor heart away;
For I have borne and still can bear
The pain of sorrow's wretched storms,
But, love, how shall I hush the prayer
For the sweet shelter of thy arms?

Oh home! no more your dimpling rills
Would cool this forehead from its pain
Flowers, blowing down the western hills,
Ye may not fill my lap again;
Time, speed with wilder, stormier wings,
The smile that lights my lip to-day,
As like the ungenial fire that springs
From the pale ashes of decay.
O! lost, like some fair planet-beam,
In clouds that tempests over-brim,
How could the splendor of a dream
Make all the future life so dim!