Go to thy silent home!—there no young voice
Shall bid thee welcome, no light footstep spring
Forth at the sound of thine!—What knows thy heart?
HERNANDEZ.
Thy children too shall perish, and I say
It shall be well!—Why tak'st thou thought for them?
Wearing thy heart, and wasting down thy life
Unto its dregs, and making night thy time
Of care yet more intense, and casting health,
Unpriz'd, to melt away, i' th' bitter cup
Thou minglest for thyself?—Why, what hath earth
To pay thee back for this?—Shall they not live,
(If the sword spare them now) to prove how soon
All love may be forgotten?—Years of thought,
Long faithful watchings, looks of tenderness,
That changed not, though to change be this world's law?
Shall they not flush thy cheek with shame, whose blood
Marks, e'en like branding iron?—to thy sick heart
Make death a want, as sleep to weariness?
Doth not all hope end thus?—or e'en at best,
Will they not leave thee—far from thee seek room
For th' overflowings of their fiery souls,
On life's wide ocean?—Give the bounding steed,
