Australian and Other Poems/Lines on the Sad Fate of a Young Girl
LINES, ON THE SAD FATE OF A YOUNG GIRL.[1]
From the water's dread embraces
Gently lift that tender form;
Cold that heart, its tenant lifeless,
Once so fair, so pure, so warm.
Ah! how altered—mark those features,
Beauty's home, joy's biding-place;
See those lines, pale, cold, and rigid,
Stamped by death's abiding trace.
Mark those tresses, erst so golden,
Sadly weeping plenteous tears;
Mark that cheek, the rose's rival,
Like the shroud the hue it bears.
See those lips, which shamed the ruby,
Fled the witching smile they bore;
And those eyes, now fixed and fireless,
Gone the enchanting light they wore.
Mark that brow, by bounteous nature
Stamped with dignity untold—
Once surpassing marble's whiteness,
Now 'tis more than marble cold.
Alas! forsaken, lifeless, lonely,
Strangers all around thee press;
Tearless eyes are gazing on thee,
Will no one mourn? none redress?
Far from childhood's haunts and kindred,
None are near to mourn thy doom;
Distant all, no clust'ring maidens,
Loved in life, dispel death's gloom.
Like thy country's has thy fate been;
Gone love's sunshine, thou hast died,
'Reft of all who bravely loved her,
Long in death's shade has she sighed.
Yet one hope abides unfading,
Thou wilt rise in radiance bright;
And thy land, from sorrow springing,
Yet may glow in Freedom's light.
- ↑ A beautiful girl, named Kearney, who was attached to a military officer, followed the regiment to Dublin, in the latter end of 1851. Some time after her arrival in the city, having a quarrel with her lover, she threw herself into the canal, where her lifeless body was found. The allusion to the girl's country in the lines will be understood when it is mentioned, that, at the period of the occurrence, Ireland had scarcely recovered from the effects of the famine of 1848, and which, even in a land for centuries subject to frequently recurring evils, has not been surpassed in its horrifying details.—Author's Note, May, 1852.