Thus the bright moments of the past
Shall rise to memory's eye,
Like vengeance-bearing ministers
To mock thy misery.
For time is father of distress;
And he whose life is long
Experiences a thousand cares,
A thousand shapes of wrong.
Thou shalt be hated in the court,
And hated in the stall,
Hated in merry gathering,
In dance and festival.
Thou shalt be hated far and wide;
And, thinking on this hate,
Wilt lay it to the black offence
That thou didst perpetrate.
Then thou wilt make some weak defence,
And plead a father's will,
That forced thee shuddering to consent
To do the act of ill.
Enjoy then him whom thus constrained
Thou choosest for thine own;
But know, when love would have his way,
He scorns a father's frown.
THE GALLEY-SLAVE OF DRAGUT
Ah, fortune's targe and butt was he,
On whom were rained the strokes from hate
From love that had not found its goal,
From strange vicissitudes of fate.
A galley-slave of Dragut he,
Who once had pulled the laboring oar,
Now, 'mid a garden's leafy boughs,
He worked and wept in anguish sore.
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