Upon the arm of death, and waiting sat,
Wishing the moments of probation fled—
Wishing his sun of life would fade away,
With the departing brightness of the day.
And thus was hushed his heart, and hushed his lyre;
Death had o'ercome him with the twilight's shade;
The altar had consumed with its own fire,
And perished with the gift upon it laid;
The idol was an idol now no more—
The Poet's love, and grief, and song were o'er.
JUDAS' REMORSE.
Priests! take them back, those thirty blood-stained pieces!
For which I sold what worlds can not redeem;
With every pulse my fearful sin increases,
And my brain throbs as in some fevered dream.
"See thou to that!" ay, ye do well to taunt
The cursed instrument of your own crime—
Fiends! take your bribe—away with it, avaunt!
Give me a respite, one small hour of time.
I will go forth to look upon the earth,
Upon whose face I am so foul a stain,
And will return no more, for from my birth
If I have lived for this, how worse than vain!
Now on the temple's pinnacle I stand,
And my eye scans the motley gaping crowd,
Whose murderous deed shall lay this fated land,
Accursed and blackened, in a bloody shroud.
