Oh, holy father, list thee to my prayer!
I may not kneel to thee as others kneel,
And tell my heart-aches with the suppliant's air,
But fiercer burns the fire I must conceal.

My soul is groping in the mists of doubt,
The sunlight and the shadows all are gone,
Only a cold, gray cloud my life's about,
Nor ever vision of a fairer dawn.

A father ne'er my brow in loving smoothed,
Nor taught my baby tongue to lisp his name;
No mother's voice my childish sorrows soothed,
Nor sought my wild, imperious will to tame.

Yet ran my life, like some bright bubbling spring,
Too full of thoughtless happiness to care
If that the future might more gladness bring,
Or might its skies be clouded or be fair.

Afar upon the purple hills of Spain--
Since waned the moons of half a year ago--
I sported, reckless as the laughing main,
Nor dreamed in life a thought of grief to know.

To-day I pine here in a chain whose gall
Is bitterer than drop of wormwood brought
From that salt sea where nothing lives, and all
The recompense my willfulness has brought.