WHAT wounds more deep than arrows keen,
Piercing the heart subdu’d ?
What renders life a dreary scene ?–
Thy sting, INGRATITUDE !
For ev’ry pain that man can know
Has still an antidote for woe,
Save where INGRATITUDE is found
Giving its deep and deadly wound.
Does Love neglected, pining, sad,
On ev’ry joy obtrude ?
Does pleasure fly the bosom glad
Stung by INGRATITUDE ?
Oh, yes ! For what is life to those
Who feel no hour of soft repose ?
Who find in ev’ry path a weed
Which bids the feeling bosom bleed !
HELL-BORN INGRATITUDE ! to thee
All lesser evils bend;
Thou potent shaft of destiny,
Where all her poisons end !
The wretch, who smarts beneath thy fang,
Day after day endures the pang;
And finds no balm, alas ! will cure
Thy wound , for ever DEEP and SURE !
Where’er in Life’s precarious scene
My weary feet have stray’d,
Thou hast my taunting follower been,
In sunshine and in shade !
In poverty I found thee ever
The bonds of social feelings sever;
And when I sank, by grief subdu’d,
I felt thy wound, INGRATITUDE .
I found thee in the smile of Love;
In Friendship’s sacred vest;
In rustic meekness saw thee move,
Pois’ning the untaught breast.
When Fortune, often dull and blind,
Heap’d splendor on the vulgar mind,
Scatt’ring on Pride and Vice her favour;
INGRATITUDE I found thee ever !
Thou imp infernal ! bane of rest !
Turn from my aching heart;
Nor still, in artful kindness drest,
Thy fatal stings impart:
This bosom, long assail’d by thee,
No more thy victim slave shall be,
No more shall be by thee subdu’d,
Thou worst of fiends, INGRATITUDE !
(Mary Elizabeth Robinson)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, Life Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, Friendship Poems, Smiling Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Pride Poems, Emotions Poems, Slavery PoemsBased on Keywords: scatt, hell-born, obtrude