A Fragment

There stand the smoking altars, where
   In one red offering are burning
Earth’s gems,—the lovely and the fair,
   Souls princely with the wealth of learning,—
Fond youth and manhood in its pride;
   Those who, from Virtue’s sunlight turning,
Resolved on moral suicide;
Sought pleasure where to hope, was sin,
To follow, impious—death, to win:
And, as they quaff the ruin up
Which sparkles in their bitter cup,
Fast from the troubled breast is driven
That inward light shed down from heaven,—
Hope, the last ray, that from God’s throne
   Is mirrored on the living soul;
While pale Despair, whose arm alone
   Sways the stern sceptre of control,
Has coiled his fettered links around
The heart in error’s chains self-bound.