When one lone lamb is bleating in the shambles

When one lone lamb is bleating in the shambles, And gleams the ruthless knife, His yester playmates pause not in their gambols, Their wild, free joy of life,

To think of him; the little ones that played With him in sunny hours, In bright green fields, and his fair form arrayed With ribbons gay and flowers, Mark not his absence from the fleecy throng; Unwept he sheds his blood; And this sad destiny is mine. Ere long From this grim solitude

I pass to death. But let me bear my fate, And calmly be forgot; A thousand others in the self-same state Await the self-same lot.

And what were friends to me? Oh! one kind voice Heard through those prison-bars, Did it not make my drooping heart rejoice, Though from my murderers

’Twas bought, perhaps? Alas! how soon life ends! And yet why should my death Make any one unhappy? Live, my friends. Nor think my fleeting breath

Calls you to come. Mayhap, in days gone by, I, too, from sight of sorrow Turned, careless, with self-wrapt unpitying eye, Not dreaming of the morrow.

And now misfortune presses on my heart, Erewhile so strong and free, ’Twere craven to ask you to bear its smart— Farewell, nor think of me!