CRIME may be clear'd, and Sorrow's eyes be dried, The lowliest poverty be gilded yet; The neck of airless, pale imprisonment Be lighten'd of its chains! For all the ills That chance or nature lays upon our heads, In chance or nature there is found a cure: But self-abasement is beyond all cure! The brand is there burn'd in the living flesh, That bears its mark to the grave. -- That dagger's plunged Into the central pulses of the heart; The act is the @3mind's suicide@1; for which There is no after health -- no hope -- no pardon! |