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I have experienced The worst the world can wreak on me--the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper'd discontent the dying prayer-- I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My heart had any interest in this life To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is left. Why then live on? That hostage that the world had in its keeping Given by me as a pledge that I would live-- That hope of Her, say rather that pure Faith In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce With the tyranny of Life--is gone, ah! whither? What boots it to reply? 'tis gone! and now Well may I break this Pact, this league of Blood That ties me to myself--and break I shall.

1810. First published from an MS. in 1893.