At Rest

To evil’s gloomy birth-right born, 
He walked the world, a soul forlorn,
A target for the shaft of scorn;

And loathing, from his Inmost soul
The treacherous demon of the bowl, 
Still bowed he to his dark control.

Laocöon of a deadlier woe.
In bitter sweat no heart can know,
He wrestled with his inborn foe!

Disdain and pride went coldly by,
As Virtue's half-averted eye
Gave the last sting that bade him die!

Where were thy angels, pitying God, 
To lift him from the reeking sod?
Where thy avenger's penal rod

To scourge the tempters, who, through all 
The true hearts round him like a wall, 
Have dragged him to his fatal fall?

Could not strong Love, whose answer came 
From sacred deeps too pure to name, 
Redeem his struggling soul from blame?

Alas! could stolen Death alone
Upsnatch him from the darker zone
Of living woe, to peace unknown?

Sweet Charity, forget not thou 
He died because he would not bow 
To shame, nor drag the loved so low!

Through the calm frenzy of despair
His human heart shone out as fair 
As a lone star in storm-black air.

Though long he wrestled with remorse, 
And the dark fiend that mars the corse 
To strangle manhood at its source, 

How sweetly well he sleeps at last!
While love stoops tenderly to cast 
Her mantle o'er his gloomy past.

O, beautiful in death he lies, 
The trace of all life's agonies
Gone from that face that fronts the skies 

With a sweet smile,—the sunny peace 
Of a world-weary soul's release,
Stamped on its clay with one last kiss!