The Drunkard's Son

Life hath no field of joy for me to reap—
     Yet not for wrongs that hands of mine have done;
     But that, alas! I am a Drunkard's son:
I seek for pleasure, but return to weep,
     While thousands gather where they have not sown,
     And find, unsought, the joy to me unknown.

Oh gracious Heaven! how bitter and how deep 
     Hath been my cup of suffering. Not one 
     Scarce-tasted drop, in life's fair stream, alone,
But the broad current in its restless sweep
     Hath all been poisoned, and the very breath 
     That fans its ruffled breast is fraught with death.

My being's sun is clouded, and dun night 
     Comes with its thickening darkness. Wan Despair,
     With sunken cheek and gray disheveled hair, 
Points to my soul its path of restless flight;
     While wailing Sorrow, from Whose streaming eyes
     Fall fast the burning tears, low-hovering, flies
O'er my lone path-way. Boyhood's light is gone,
Whose gentle beams irradiate the brow
     Of the young pilgrim on life's guiltless morn;
     And clothed in darkness is the early dawn
Of rip'ning manhood o'er my being now.

A curse is on me—guiltless have I bowed 
     To its stern power, that wasted all my soul, 
Too weak to suffer, to complain too proud;
     Yet now o'ermastered with its dark control, 
I strive in vain to quench the thoughts that crowd
Like midnight spectres gleaming from the cloud,
     Where the horsed squadrons of the tempest roll.

They rise! — they come! — and, withering up my heart,
Burn with a fire that all the tears which start 
From the red eye of sorrow cannot quench, 
Nor the long-garnered floods that falling drench 
The dry earth can one cooling touch impart.

Oh, I have felt, from reason's earliest dawn,
     Pangs that would stir the calm and passionless heart
Of Mercy into madness. Hate hath drawn
The blade that sears but slays not, and fell Scorn
Points the contemptuous finger—“Ha! there goes
The Drunkard’s Boy!”—she taunts me in my woes.

And even those I could have cherished, dart
     Malignant glances at me as they pass;
Glances which sting the scorned one to the heart:
While haughty Insolence and cold Neglect
Walk heedless by, with hateful forms erect.
     And flinty hearts locked up in triple brass.

     And yet they know I have a soul to feel—
A something here within this aching breast—
That cannot brook the proud-born scoffer’s jest,
     Or bear unmoved the haught contemner’s heel;
Something that scorns to wear the mark of shame
By proud derision branded on the name
Of him I CANNOT love, yet DARE NOT hate,
Who gave my being and its evil fate.

Born to a lasting heritage of wo—
     To taste the bitterness of the scorn of earth—
How vainly has my spirit striven to thro
     Off from itself the unsought boon of birth;
To rise triumphant o’er the hated THINGS
     That hiss their venom round my path below;
Climb the rough steep where Fame’s loud trumpet rings,
     Or taste the humbler joys that others know.

But daily contact with an icy world—
     The cold repulse of all unpitying scorn—
Have damped the ardent fire within, where curled
     The flame of youthful aspiration. Gone
Is the last ray that lighted Hope to find
Some genial bond of union with mankind.

Back to the heart each gentler thought hath shrunk—
     Quenched are the joys affection might have given—
A withered branch upon a blasted trunk,
     How have I borne the battering storms of heaven.
There is no spirit [9 lines obscured]

Oh! I am weary! Would that I could sleep
    Through the long midnight of the moribund tomb,
Where primal darkness and thick night should keep
Perpetual Sabbath on the unmoving deep
     And there forget, amid the eternal gloom.
The burning thoughts that thro’ my hot brain sweep.

When the poor heart hath lost the fonder ties
     That hold one’s being to the things below,
When the pure flame of young ambition dies,
     And Promise fadeth like her own bright bow,
When fond affections, pilgrims to the shrine
     Of holy friendship, shall unblest return
To the lone temple of the heart, to pine
     In secret sorrow o’er their pure love’s urn;
Then what have earth and all her sons to give
     That man should beg one moment’s boon of breath?
Or where’s the wretch that would not scorn to live
     When Life itself is bitterer than Death?

Yet, Lord, forgive me, and my erring tongue;
I bow to Thee—let Thy good will be done;
And though my spirit hath been deeply stung
With keenest pangs, since reason’s light begun
Yet, God of Mercy, Thou canst deign to bless
An erring father’s son in all his wretchedness.