Oh! teach me to forget the home,
The blessed home that once was mine;
Ere thou, vain trifler! bid'st me come,
A slave, the worst of slaves, to thine.
Nor this as guilt's perverseness blame;
Although my bitter choice be still
To reap the harvest of my shame,
A self abandoned thing of ill!
To live in sin, untasked to smile
On all its hateful misery,
Is better sure than contract vile
To serve a heartless wretch like thee.
I would not it should seem that one,
So low, so lost as I am now,
Could rest mid ruin's dark work done,
Nor feel the serpent on my brow!
Go, breathe thy words in empty air:
Believe not woman's shuddering soul,
Still goaded on by crime's despair,
E'er sought in vice a happy goal!
First published in The Australasian Chronicle, 28 October 1841;
and later in
Stolen Moments: A Short Series of Poems by Henry Parkes, 1842.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
The blessed home that once was mine;
Ere thou, vain trifler! bid'st me come,
A slave, the worst of slaves, to thine.
Nor this as guilt's perverseness blame;
Although my bitter choice be still
To reap the harvest of my shame,
A self abandoned thing of ill!
To live in sin, untasked to smile
On all its hateful misery,
Is better sure than contract vile
To serve a heartless wretch like thee.
I would not it should seem that one,
So low, so lost as I am now,
Could rest mid ruin's dark work done,
Nor feel the serpent on my brow!
Go, breathe thy words in empty air:
Believe not woman's shuddering soul,
Still goaded on by crime's despair,
E'er sought in vice a happy goal!
First published in The Australasian Chronicle, 28 October 1841;
and later in
Stolen Moments: A Short Series of Poems by Henry Parkes, 1842.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
