Despair. Song.
Ask not the pallid stranger's woe,
With beating heart and throbbing breast,
Whose step is faltering, weak, and slow,
As though the body needed rest. -
Whose 'wildered eye no object meets,
Nor cares to ken a friendly glance,
With silent grief his bosom beats, -
Now fixed, as in a deathlike trance.
Who looks around with fearful eye,
And shuns all converse with man kind,
As though some one his griefs might spy,
And soothe them with a kindred mind.
A friend or foe to him the same,
He looks on each with equal eye;
The difference lies but in the name,
To none for comfort can he fly. -
'Twas deep despair, and sorrow's trace,
To him too keenly given,
Whose memory, time could not efface -
His peace was lodged in Heaven. -