"Father! thy, days have passed in peace, 'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer; To bid the sins of others cease, Thyself without a crime or care, Save transient ills that all must bear, Has been thy lot from youth to age; And thou wilt bless thee from the rage Of passions fierce and uncontrolled, Such as thy penitents unfold, Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 980 Within thy pure and pitying breast. My days, though few, have passed below In much of Joy, but more of Woe; Yet still in hours of love or strife, I've 'scaped the weariness of Life: Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, I loathed the languor of repose. Now nothing left to love or hate, No more with hope or pride elate, I'd rather be the thing that crawls 990 Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,[116] Than pass my dull, unvarying days, Condemned to meditate and gaze. Yet, lurks a wish within my breast For rest--but not to feel 'tis rest. Soon shall my Fate that wish fulfil; And I shall sleep without the dream Of what I was, and would be still Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:[eb] My memory now is but the tomb 1000 Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: 'Though better to have died with those Than bear a life of lingering woes. My spirit shrunk not to sustain The searching throes of ceaseless pain; Nor sought the self-accorded grave Of ancient fool and modern knave: Yet death I have not feared to meet; And in the field it had been sweet, Had Danger wooed me on to move 1010 The slave of Glory, not of Love. I've braved it--not for Honour's boast; I smile at laurels won or lost; To such let others carve their way, For high renown, or hireling pay: But place again before my eyes Aught that I deem a worthy prize-- The maid I love, the man I hate-- And I will hunt the steps of fate, To save or slay, as these require, 1020 Through rending steel, and rolling fire:[ec] Nor needst thou doubt this speech from one Who would but do--what he _hath_ done. Death is but what the haughty brave, The weak must bear, the wretch must crave; Then let life go to Him who gave: I have not quailed to Danger's brow When high and happy--need I _now_? * * * * *