Hope.

Hope was but a timid friend;

 She sat without a grated den,

Watching how my fate would tend,

  Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;

  Through the bars, one dreary day,

I looked out to see her there,

  And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,

  Still in strife, she whispered peace;

She would sing while I was weeping;

  If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting;

  When my lost joys strewed the ground,

Even Sorrow saw, repenting,

  Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given

  Balm to all my frenzied pain,

Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven, 

  Went, and ne'er returned again!

E.J.B.