Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

  Hope Was but a timid friend;
     She sat without the grated den,
     Watching how my fate would tend,
     Even as selfish-hearted men.

     She was cruel in her fear;
     Through the bars one dreary day,
     I looked out to see her there,
     And she turned her face away!

     Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
     Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
     She would sing while I was weeping;
     If I listened, she would cease.

     False she was, and unrelenting;
     When my last joys strewed the ground,
     Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
     Those sad relics scattered round;

     Hope, whose whisper would have given
     Balm to all my frenzied pain,
     Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
     Went, and ne'er returned again!