  Away, gaunt fiend! Take thy tyrannous presence from my cottage door. Too long thou hast held me captive at thy will, And I cannot bear thy blighting touch so chill, For I am weary, and my heart is bruised and sore. Too long thou’st mocked me with thy hideous face; When all the world seemed dark and cold to me, Thou’st jeered and taunted in thy fiendish glee, That I was homeless and had scarce a resting place. Vile spectre, avaunt! Take thy evil visage from my humble cottage door, And thy lacerating talons from my shrinking heart. O! I have prayed that thou would’st pity and depart, And leave me peace at last that I might want no more. Why hast thou all these weary and burdened years Shadowed every hope and left but toil and pain, Clutched at my very life, and made all vain The aspirations that died in sorrow and in tears? Down, black phantom! Filled with blighted hopes, vain dreams, and dead men’s bones, Thou heedest not the pleadings of the souls that die, The widow’s want and prayer, the orphan’s cry For help, earth’s poor that struggle on ’mid sighs and moans. Thou hast still’d the voices that rang light and gay, And hushed the laughter that will gush no more, And brought the gloom of night along the shining shore Of souls once bright with bloom and sunny as the day. Insatiate ghoul! I’d snatch thee from thy infamous pedestal, And hurl thee writhing down the glaring vaults of hell, That man might walk redeemed, with head erect, and dwell In plenteousness when capital’s divided well. But I’ll arise and smite thy grinning, dev’lish face; Aye, I’ll fight thee unto death’s grim, ghastly gate, And, though I perish by thy cruel fangs and fate, ’Twere best to fight a hero’s fight for liberty and place! Malignant foe! Thou shalt at last be put to ignominious flight, For life is but a span, an echo on the shore, Where burdens are laid down and sorrow is no more. Thy doom shall be “cast out in endless, shoreless night.” Thank God, there is a sphere to which thou canst not rise, A radiant place of fadeless bloom divine: Man’s home supernal, far beyond the reach of time, Where weary ones may rest, O wondrous paradise! |
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