Who to the dismal phantom-strand
The herald of my grief will venture?
The boat forever leaves the land,
But only shadows there may enter.--
Veiled from each holier eye repose
The realms where midnight wraps the dead,
And, while the Stygian river flows,
No living footstep there may tread!
A thousand pathways wind the drear
Descent;--none upward lead to-day;--
No witness to the mother's ear
The daughter's sorrows can betray.

Mothers of happy human clay
Can share at least their children's doom;
And when the loved ones pass away,
Can track--can join them--in the tomb!
The race alone of heavenly birth
Are banished from the darksome portals;
The Fates have mercy on the earth,
And death is only kind to mortals! [30]
Oh, plunge me in the night of nights,
From heaven's ambrosial halls exiled!
Oh, let the goddess lose the rights
That shut the mother from the child!

Cont…

All design and imagery © Copyright Fracture 2006. For any information or queries, please contact Fracture.