Explore "Past Joys" by Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The friends we've loved, the home we've left, / Will ofttimes claim a tear; / And though of these we are bereft, / Still memory makes them dear.
And deep we feel each trifling ill, / Each sorrow of the soul: / But care we for the painful thrill, / That o'er some breasts doth roll?
Poor Afric's son -- ah! he must feel / How hard it is to part / From all he lov'd -- from all that life / Had twined around his heart.
His is a sorrow deeper far, / Than all that we can show; / His is a lasting grief, o'er which / No healing balm can flow.
The mother, wife, or child he loved, / He ne'er shall see again; / To him they're lost -- ay, dead indeed: / What for him doth remain?
A feeling of deep wretchedness / Comes o'er his troubled soul; / The thoughts of home -- of other days, / In painful visions roll.
His home -- ah! that lov'd name recalls / All that was dear to him; / But these were scenes he'll know no more --
He only feels they've been.