PROPHECY III

by: Lucretia Davidson (1808-1825)

(Written in her sixteenth year.)

ILT thou rashly unveil the dark volume of fate?

It is open before thee, repentance is late;

Too late, for behold, o'er the dark page of woe,

Move the days of thy grief, yet unnumbered below.

There is one, whose sad destiny mingles with thine;

He was formed to be happy — he dared to repine;

And jealousy mixed in his bright cup of bliss,

And the page of his fate grew still darker than this:

He gazed on thee, maiden, he met thee, and passed;

But better for thee had the Siroc's fell blast

Swept by thee, and wasted and faded thee there,

So youthtful, so happy, so thoughtless, so fair.

And mark ye his broad brow? 't is noble; 't is high;

And mark ye the flash of his dark, eagle-eye?

When the wide wheels of time have encircled the world;

When the banners of night in the sky are unfurled;

Then, maiden, remember the tale I have told,

For farther I may not, I dare not unfold.

The rose on yon dark page is sear and decayed,

And thus, e'en in youth, shall thy fondest hopes fade;

'T is an emblem of thee, broken, withered, and pale —

Nay, start not, and blanch not, though dark be the tale;

An hour-glass half-spent, and a tear-bedewed token,

A heart, withered, wasted, and bleeding and broken,

All these are the emblems of sorrow to be;

I will veil the page, maiden, in pity to thee.