HELL holds no terror I shall ever fear,
For earth when you are absent is my hell;
Nor thought of meeting can my torment quell,
For loneliness is black, and cold, and drear.
This hell is dark! My passion is a flame!
Its anguish is a never dying fire,
And longing—hope that never dare aspire,
But die, in loneliness from whence it came.
Heav’n though is kind and lets me sometimes in,
Then hell is all forgotten, and its woe
Fades like the dew dispersed by summer’s morn,
And I am purged of all my pain and sin.
Such moments shine like jewels—then I go
Back to the dreary hell where pain was born.