Juliet Facey

Hope was but a timid friend; | She sat without the grated den, | Watching how my fate would tend, | Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear; | Through the bars, one dreary day, | I looked out to see her there, | And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping, | Still, in strife, she whispered peace; | She would sing while I was weeping’ | If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting; | When my last joys strewed the ground, | Even Sorrow saw, repenting, | Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given | Balm to all my frenzied pain, | Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven, | Went, and ne’er returned again!