Mazelli, and Other Poems (Canto2,5)

 V.

    "The words I speak are no complaint And if I breathe out my despair, It is not that my heart grows faint, Or shrinks from what 'tis doomed to bear. Though every sorrow which may shake Or rend man's heart, should pierce my own, Their strength united, should not make My lip breathe one complaining tone.

    If I must suffer, it shall be With a firm heart, a soul elate, A wordless scorn, which silently Shall mock the stern decrees of fate.

    The weak might bend, the timid shrink, Until misfortune's storm blew by, But I, a chieftain's son, should drink Its proffered cup without a sigh.

    And it will scarcely, to my lip, Seem harsher than yon fountain's flow, For I have held companionship With Misery, from my youth till now—— Have felt, by turns, each pang, each care, Her hapless sons are doomed, to bear；—— I caught my mother's parting breath, When passed she to the spirit land； And from the fatal field of death, Where, leading on his fearless band, With fiery and resistless might, He fell, though victor in the fight, Pierced by the arrow of some foe, I saw my father's spirit go.

    And I have seen his warrior men, From mountain, valley, hill, and glen, Departing one by one, since then, As from the dry and withered spray, The wilted leaves are blown away, Upon some windy autumn day： I, only I, am left to be The last leaf of the blighted tree, Which the first wind that through the sky Goes carelessly careering by, Will, in its wild, unheeded mirth, Rend from its hold, and dash to earth：

    Thus, here alone have I remained, An outcast, where I should have reigned.