Left to your care his precious orphan child--
His only child, his motherless, his daughter.
And you received the gift, and vowed to be
A father to the little lonely one.
Where is that orphan now?--Must I go on?
'Tis not to harrow up your trembling soul.
I would not lay a feather on the weight
Stern memory brings to crash the guilty down.
But I would stir your feelings to their depths.
And bring, like conscience in your dying hour,
The sense of your great crime, that so you may
Repent, and Heaven will pardon. Here on earth,
Man has no power t' absolve such guilty deed.
Prisoner, one month ago, and you were safe--
A man among your neighbors well beloved,
And in your home the one preferred to all.
No monarch could have driven you from the throne
You held in th' loving hearts of wife and child.
Your coming was their festival; your step,
As eve drew on, was music to their ears.
The little girl, the adopted of your vow,
Was always at the door to claim the kiss
That you, with father's tenderness, bestowed.
Alas! for her--for you--the last return!
One fatal night you yielded to the tempter,
And drained the drunkard's cup till reason fled,
And then went reeling home, your brain on fire,
And, raging like a tiger in the toils,
You fancied every human form a foe.
And when that little girl, like playful fawn,