Classic Poem

Grief made its home within my breast
Till my heart grew sad and cold —
Till my sunken cheek, and my dull, dim eye,
Of its blighting presence told.

A blacker fiend came mocking then: —
It was madness in its ire;
And its maniac-hands my heart-strings wrench'd,
And it wrapped my brain in fire: —

And it fought with reason in my breast
Till it had its diresome will —
Till bound in its chains was the struggling soul,
Which was wildly conscious still.

I spoke with madness' raving voice,
And I glared with madness' eyes:
Flesh did its work, while the spirit wept
O'er the body's sacrifice.

My feet and hands with chains were bound,
And my body suffer'd blows;
And the dark fiend shriek'd from the spirit's home
As the lash in menace rose.

The eye that once look'd kind on me
Now fearful o'er me stole;
Then the fiend would turn with a mocking laugh
To its trembling victim soul.

Months, years of torture such as this
I do remember now,
Till my heart grew white and my body weak,
And wrinkled grew my brow:

And then there came a dreary blank
When all was dark within —
A howling night of unutter'd woe
Where a moonbeam could not win.

And in that night I had a dream:
I thought that far away
From the dungeon deep — my torture-home —
On a morning I did stray.

I thought I lay within a wood,
In its glorious summer prime;
And I heard the voice of Him who spans
Eternity and time.

H E bade the fiend resign its prey,
And the prison'd soul go free;
And the dream was o'er, for I stood restored
Beneath the forest-tree.