THE FEMALE CONVICT.
257
That frost and fever that wear the heart,
Had made the colours of youth depart
From the sallow cheek, save over it came
The burning flush of the spirit's shame.
They were sailing over the salt sea-foam,
Far from her country, far from her home;
And all she had left for her friends to keep
Was a name to hide, and a memory to weep!
And her future held forth but the felon's lot,
To live forsaken—to die forgot!
She could not weep, and she could not pray,
But she wasted and withered from day to day,
Till you might have counted each sunken vein
When her wrist was prest by the iron chain;
And sometimes I thought her large dark eye
Had the glisten of red insanity.
S
