Poems (Taggart)/The Cup of Bitterness
THE CUP OF BITTERNESS.1825.
All my life's spring-time lost in agony!
And now 't is fast retiring; years have flown,
One score and five, nor left much trace behind,
Save their sad havoc with my dying form,
And mind half prostrate, half to phrensy driven.
Ah! would this night were past! But wherefore wish?
For me, 't is better than the glorious morn.
The sounds of busy life will sore distract
This weary brain, and thrill my fainting frame
With quick vibrations and excess of pain,
And goad to torture every struggling nerve.
Ah! the day dawns! The sounds of joy awake,
And swell harmonious on the morning air.
The feathered songsters, eager to address
Their matin notes of grateful praise to Him
Who formed their nature and decreed their joy,
Pour forth the homage of their new delight
In tuneful strains of native harmony.—
The glorious light approaches, and the shades
Of solitary night retire afar.
But whence this gathering gloom, that whelms my soul
In darkness deeper than the shades of night,
And sinks my spirit in the depths of woe?
These sounds of joy are goads of keenest smart;
They mock my sorrows, and deride their pang.—
Ah! where the days when dawning life first woke?
Then a short taste of happiness was mine,
And nature's charms and song revived my soul,
Nor contemplation wrought a maddening pain;—
Those days are past, forever past away,
Nor joy can visit my sad spirit more.
And now 't is fast retiring; years have flown,
One score and five, nor left much trace behind,
Save their sad havoc with my dying form,
And mind half prostrate, half to phrensy driven.
Ah! would this night were past! But wherefore wish?
For me, 't is better than the glorious morn.
The sounds of busy life will sore distract
This weary brain, and thrill my fainting frame
With quick vibrations and excess of pain,
And goad to torture every struggling nerve.
Ah! the day dawns! The sounds of joy awake,
And swell harmonious on the morning air.
The feathered songsters, eager to address
Their matin notes of grateful praise to Him
Who formed their nature and decreed their joy,
Pour forth the homage of their new delight
In tuneful strains of native harmony.—
The glorious light approaches, and the shades
Of solitary night retire afar.
But whence this gathering gloom, that whelms my soul
In darkness deeper than the shades of night,
And sinks my spirit in the depths of woe?
These sounds of joy are goads of keenest smart;
They mock my sorrows, and deride their pang.—
Ah! where the days when dawning life first woke?
Then a short taste of happiness was mine,
And nature's charms and song revived my soul,
Nor contemplation wrought a maddening pain;—
Those days are past, forever past away,
Nor joy can visit my sad spirit more.