Love's Victim.
Reading edition
She was no dainty city belle, Half art and half deceit,
And yet no fairer vision The human eye could greet.
Naught knew she of city life Or fashion's changing art—
Nature created her a belle And blessed her with a heart.
Her eyes were large and soulful, Her face divinely fair;
Her form was lithe and graceful And a golden dream her hair.
Her voice was full of melody: Each tone to listening ear
Seemed to awake such music As angels delight to hear.
Beautiful, pure and guileless, With the faith of a trusting child,
She worshiped the God of nature With a spirit undefiled.
She lived with honest parents In a home on the mountain side,
Where peace and plenty lingered And love was true and tried.
Parental duress was unknown, For love's restraints are mild:
A mother's love and father's hope Were centered in this child.
The acknowledged belle of the mountain, She spurned the coquette's art,
Determining never to promise Her hand without her heart.
She could not love her suitors With the love a wife should give,
And deemed it sin without such love In wedlock's bonds to live.
The idol of many a noble heart, None dared their suit to press:
Thus they wound the gentle spirit That pitied, but could not bless.
Grateful for each friendly smile That o'er her face would beam,
She reigned an empress absolute In each fond lover's dream.
A petted child of fashion, The heir to boundless wealth,
Came one day among them To recruit his waning health.
These hospitable mountain people Welcomed the haggard boy,
And strove to make his visit One radiant scene of joy.
They bade their darling daughter To be the stranger's guide,
And show him all the beauties Of her loved mountain side.
Together they scaled the mountains, With many a merry shout;
Together they garnered the flowers Or angled the nimble trout.
He spake of his home in the city, Of the wealth he soon would own;
Promised to make Lenora his wife Ere the summer days had flown.
Lenora loved this stranger With a soul-absorbing love,
And trembled 'neath his caresses As helpless as a dove.
He was a master of the art That robs the halls of Truth
To gain what passion courts, Tho' it blasts the hopes of youth.
His honied words of flattery, Uttered with seductive art,
Were music to the listening ear And soon deceived the heart.
Lenora confided in his worth, Receiving each promise as truth—
How could she doubt her only love In the trustful hours of youth?
Assured of an early marriage, She yielded to him one day
That priceless germ of innocence And fell—to trust a prey.
She hoped this sacrifice would gain Her lover's every thought;
This were a boon, if death could buy. She deemed not dearly bought.
Little she dreamed that fatal hour That love had sped the dart
That stamped her as an outcast, With a withered, broken heart.
Eugene went to his city home, Swearing to soon return
And claim as wife the girl he knew His parents proud would spurn.
Summer and autumn days passed by And the winter's cold set in,
Yet the recreant lover came not To the child he taught to sin.
A mother's ever watchful eye Discovered her daughter's shame,
Heard her story with breaking heart, But uttered no word of blame.
She knew her daughter's downfall Was the fruit of love beguiled,
But hated the heartless stranger Who ruined her trusting child.
God alone can measure the pain That child and mother felt,
As, locked in lingering embrace, In agony they knelt
And poured in heaven's listening ear Their heart-destroying grief;
And who so bold as to deny That Heaven sent relief?
The father learned his daughter's sin And drove her from his door.
"Go!" he said, "you guilty wretch, You are my child no more."
Stung by these cruel, terrible words, She fled in wild affright
In search of the heartless lover, Her fearful wrongs to right.
She tracked the guilty miscreant down, And he, to save his name,
Hid her till her child was born In a house of doubtful fame.
The world looked on the helpless child With cold, unpitying eye.
The villian bade his dupe go home, "Repent of her sin and die."
She heard, and from her glittering eye No tear of anguish sped—
With dagger drawn she reached his side, And struck the villain dead!
With her babe she sought her father's door And pled with a piteous cry
A shelter for her hapless babe While the storm was raging high.
"Begone, you wretch!" the father cried, "I curse the hour that gave
Birth to a wretch whose sin has laid My wife within the grave."
"My mother dead! and I still live? Ah! whither shall I fly?
O God! protect my hapless babe, And suffer me to die."
The storm increased; she wandered on Almost till break of day,
Till weary, wet and almost dead, She knelt in the path to pray.
The sky was lit from end to end By the lightning's awful glare,
And a falling tree pinned both to earth As they knelt in the act of prayer!
They found them thus in the morning light, And the father's grief was wild.
He tenderly looked on the touching scene And at last forgave his child!
They buried Lenora and her nameless babe Close beside her mother's clay,
And each one spake in kindly tones Of the hapless ones that day.
The arm that sent the dagger home Was nerved by a brain dethroned:
'Tis Lenora's was an awful deed, But her terrible death atoned.
Aye, let us hope the much-wronged child Has reached a home above
Where babes can live who have no name And 'tis not sin to love.