When sorrowing clouds the face of heaven deform, And hope's bright star sets darkly in the storm, Around us ghastly shapes and phantoms swim, And all beyond is formless, vague, and dim, Or life's cold barren path before us lies, A wild and weary waste of tears and sighs; From the lorn heart each sweetening solace gone, Abandoned, friendless, withered, lost, and lone; And when with keener pangs we bleed to know That hands beloved have struck the deepest blow; That friends we deemed most true, and held most dear, Have stretched the pall of death o'er pleasure's bier; Repaid our trusting faith with serpent guile, Cursed with a kiss, and stabbed beneath a smile; What then remains for souls of tender mould? One last and silent refuge, calm and cold-- A resting place for misery's gentle slave; Hearts break but once, no wrongs can reach the grave. Rest ye, mild spirits of afflicted worth! Sweet is your slumber in the quiet earth; And soon the voice of heaven shall bid you rise To meet rewarding smiles in yonder skies. But where, for solace, shall the bosom turn For death too strong--for tears--too proudly stern? When shall the lulling dews of peace descend On hearts that cannot break and will not bend? Ah! never, never--they are doomed to feel Pains that no balm of heaven or earth can heal; To live in groans, and yield their parting breath Without a joy in life--or hope in death. Yet, for a while, one living hope remains, That nerves each fibre and the soul sustains; One desperate hope, whose agonizing throes Are bitterer far than all the worst of woes; A hope of crime and horrors, wild and strange As demon thoughts--that hope is thine, Revenge! 'Twas this that gave, oh! Ellinor, to thee A strength to bear thy matchless misery: Though the hot blood ran boiling in her brain, And rolled a tide of fire through every vein, Though many a rushing voice of blighted bliss Struck on her mental ears, like adders' hiss; That hope gave gloomy fierceness to her eye, Dash'd down the tear, repress'd the unloading sigh; Fixed her wan quivering lip, and steeled her breast To crush the hearts that robbed her own of rest.