For not alone my dearest hope lay slain,
And the few loved ones who are left me wane
Like fairy gold, but all around lie blent
In one dishonoured ruin, pale and rent,
Children with women, lately fair as day,
Now overmoaned by men who rave and pray
For rest beside them! And my country hounds
The oppressor on! she jeers at the death-wounds
Of human hearts! England, who freed the slave,
Now, for her base greed, thrusts him to his grave![1]
Alas! in her dear bosom want and crime
Horribly thrive, and lurk, waiting red harvest-time!
It was before we knew him that I came;
And now the glory seems no more the same.
I longed to lead his childish footsteps here,
And watch the wonder in his eyes appear,
And welcome his glad accents ringing clear.
I only hear low wind in the ravine,
A voice of one disconsolate who may lean
Among dark pines, lamenting what hath been!
Voice of mad Time, who blindly brings to birth,
And blindly ruins all her children's mirth,
And crooning idly, sheds their petals upon earth!
O desolate mother of mortals, who bewailest
All thy sweet sons torn from thee, nor availest
Aught to appease the hunger of dim Death,
Who feedeth on thy cherished children's breath!
Is it indeed as Sense and Seeming say,
- ↑ Written at the time of the Bulgarian massacres.
