12
SONG.
Oh say not that my heart is dead,
For that my lip has learn’d
A lesson from the lapse of time,
Which it would once have spurn’d.
I must live with the false, the cold,
And I must seem like them;
And thought and feeling wear the mask
That yet they most contemn.
Oh! say not that my words are false;
They may not dare be true:
What am I, that I should forsake
The path which all pursue?
’Tis sad to see how all around
To gilded idols kneel;
And strive to be like one of those
Who cannon think or feel.
Alas! alas! to pass in peace
Through a world so chill, so lone,
The throbbing pulses should be steel,
And the heart should be stone! L. E. L.
