Poems (Lambert)/The Opium-eater

by Mary Eliza Perine Tucker Lambert

THE OPIUM-EATER.

[Before taking a dose.]

LIFE'S pathway to me is dreary;
I am ill, and cold, and weary;
Would my lonely walk were done,
And my heavenly race begun!

Once all things to me were bright,
Things that now seem dark as night:
Is the darkness all within?
Dark without from inward sin?

The present dark; eyes dim with age
Can see no joy, save memory's page.
The present, future, ne'er can be
Bright as the past they once did see.

My hair is turning quite grey now;
I see some wrinkles on my brow;
My teeth—they must be failing too,—
And corns are growing in my shoe.

I muffle up my aching face,
And pray from pangs a moment's grace.
Ah! now the misery seeks my head—
Would I were with the pangless dead!

There is a cure for pain and grief—
Come, Opium, come to my relief!
Soothed by thy influence, I shall find
A moment's rest, and peace of mind.

[After taking a dose.]

Ah! now I sit in bowers of bliss,
Soothed by an angel's balmy kiss!
Delicious languor o'er me stealing
Is now my only sense of feeling.

The breath of flowers perfumes the air;
The forms around are—oh, so fair!
The once cold air seems warm and bright,
And I, too, seem a being of light.

My hair is not so very grey—
Some dye will take that hue away;
A little powder shall, I vow,
Hide the small wrinkles on my brow.

My teeth are sound—I feel no pain—
Their slight ache was but sign of rain;
And then the twinging of my feet
Was nothing but a dream, a cheat.

To me, the night, though dark, seems day,
Colored by Hope's most beauteous ray:
No sorrow hence shall give me pain—
I know I'll never weep again!