h'd them waning from the wistful eye,
Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand,
Breathes the false incense of his fatal sigh.

8.

And there the Babe! there, on the mother's bosom,
Lull'd in its sweet and golden rest it lay,
Fresh in life's morning as a rosy blossom,
It smiled, poor harmless one, my tears away.
Deathlike yet lovely, every feature speaking
In such dear calm and beauty to my sadness,
And cradled still the mother's heart, in breaking,
The soft'ning love and the despairing madness.

9.

"Woman, where is my father?"--freezing through me,
Lisp'd the mute Innocence with thunder-sound;
"Woman, where is thy husband?"--called unto me,
In every look, word, whisper, busying round!
For thee, poor child, there is no father's kiss.
He fondleth _other_ children on his knee.
How thou wilt curse our momentary bliss,
When Bastard on thy name shall branded be!

10.

Thy mother--oh, a hell her heart concealeth,
Lone-sitting, lone in social Nature's All!
Thirsting for that glad fount thy love revealeth,
While still thy look the glad fount turns to gall.
In every infant cry my soul is heark'ning,
The haunting happiness for ever o'er,
And all the bitterness of death is dark'ning
The heavenly looks that smiled mine eyes before.

11.

Hell, if my sight those looks a moment misses--
Hell, when my sight upon those looks is turn'd--
The avenging furies madden in _thy_ kisses,
That slept in _his_ what time my lips they burn'd.
Out from their graves his oaths spoke back in thunder!
The perjury stalk'd like murder in the sun--
For ever--God!--sense, reason, soul, sunk under--
The deed was done!

12.

Francis, O Francis! league on league, shall chase thee
The shadows hurrying grimly on thy flight--
Still with their icy arms they shall embrace thee,
And mutter thunder in thy dream's delight!
Down from the soft stars, in their tranquil glory,
Shall look thy dead child with a ghastly stare;
That shape shall haunt thee in its cerements gory,
And scourge thee back from heaven--its home is there!

13.

Lifeless--how lifeless!--see, oh see, before me
It lies cold--stiff!--O God!--and with that blood
I feel, as swoops the dizzy darkness o'er me,
Mine own life