Classic Poem

C ONSUMPTION , fairest of Death's craving brood!
But, ah! most treacherous too! thou smiling fate;
Hence! I conjure thee, hence from those I love!
For on the heart's best feelings thou canst play
A dread variety of hopes and fears.
Thy flattering hand paints the poor victim's cheek
With roses emulous of health's rich glow,
And to the sinking eye such lustre gives
As fills the eager glance of joy and love.
Thy long-devoted prey by thee is decked
With bright attractions ne'er till then its own,
As victims were of old with flowers adorned
Before they bled in pagan sacrifice:....
And as the schoolboy, whose expected sport
Adown some favourite stream or well-known walk
Thick gathering clouds and falling rains prevent,
If he of sunshine see one partial beam,
Fancies (fond dreamer!) general splendor near,....
So anxious friends thy beauteous seemings watch,
As o'er thy victim's restless couch they hang,
And hail them pledges that all danger's past;....
Pledges as sure as to the Patriarch's eye
Was the bright arch of ever-mingling hues:
But, in that very moment, (treacherous power!)
Upon security Death softly steals,
And on thy conquest lays his icy hand,
Smiling amidst the beauty thou hast made.

Ye who have watched beside a fading friend,
Unconscious that the cheek's luxuriant red
Bloomed like the nightshade with unwholesome beauty,
And that the bright dilated eye but owed,
Like mouldering wood, its lustre to decay,....
Ye who have wept, then smiled amidst your tears,
And checked forebodings which ill-founded seemed,....
Ye who have hoped even in death's dread presence,
And then been summoned, O heart-freezing call!
Affection's last sad duties to perform,
And hear upon the narrow dwelling's lid
The first earth thrown, (sound deadliest to the soul!...
For, strange delusion! then, and then alone,
Hope seems for ever fled, and separation,
The final separation, to begin)....
Ye who have felt all this....will on my verse
Drop, as you read, a sympathetic tear,
And, sighing, own the mournful picture just.