Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/156

"Lo! the false jewel, see. And would'st thou know
Whose fraud exchanged it for my precious gem?
Thou art the man. My birth-right was the faith
Of Jesus Christ, which thou hast stolen away
With hollow words. Take back thy tinselled bait,
And let me sorrowing seek my Saviour's fold.
Tempted I was, and madly have I fallen,
Oh, give me back my faith."
                                                And there he stood,
The stately-born of Scio, in whose veins
Stirred the high blood of Greece. There was a pause,
A haughty lifting up of Turkish brows,
In wonder and in scorn; a hissing tone
Of wrath precursive, and a stern reply—
    "The faith of Moslem, or the sabre stroke,
Chose thee, young Greek!"
                                             Then rose his lofty form
In all its majesty, and his deep voice
Rang out sonorous as a triumph-song,
"Give back my faith!"
                                        A pale torch faintly gleamed
Through niche and window of a lonely church,
And thence the wailing of a stifled dirge
Rose sad to Midnight's ear. A corpse was there—
And a young beauteous creature, kneeling low
In voiceless grief. Her wealth of raven locks
Swept o'er the dead man's brow, as there she laid
The withered bridal crown, while every hope
That at its twining woke, and every joy
Young love in fond idolatry had nursed,
Perished that hour.
                                 Feebly she raised her child,
And bade him kiss his father. But the boy
Shrank back in horror from the clotted blood,
And wildly clasped his hands with such a cry
Of piercing anguish, that each heart recoiled
From his impassioned woe. But there was one