Poems (Taggart)/Despair

by Cynthia Taggart

For works with similar titles, see Despair.

DESPAIR. "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends!"

Sorely my wounded spirit strives,
 And struggles hard to gain
A moment's calmness to endure
 Unutterable pain.

In vain I court long absent sleep,
 For one short hour to spread
The balm of sweet forgetfulness
 Around my aching head.

When fainting half, in fancied ease,
 My heavy eyes I close,
And think the soft restorer near,
 Breathing benign repose,—

Then quick returning watchfulness
 Destroys the transient rest,
And misery lays her cruel hand
 Once more upon my breast.

Now frantic thoughts fly through my brain
 By fiercer anguish driven,
The strife it cannot long sustain,—
It sues to Hope—to Peace, in vain:—
 No consolation 's given!

No succouring hand supports me now,
My soul to wretchedness must bow,
 And feel Distraction's force;
For pangs still fiercer, and unknown,
Rend Reason from her ruined throne,
While all the struggling fibres groan,
 And I in phrensy toss;—

And in my heart a pang more dread
Than that which makes the dying dead,
 Tells, nought can ever more relieve,
Till mortal pains life's course arrest,
And from my struggling, writhing breast,
The soul in agony divest,
 And the cold earth the corse receive.