The Diamond Digger

What change of luck! O Fortune! they have well
Compared thee to a woman;--ever flying,
But luring on, when Hope-led we pursue;--
And when we scorn thee, coming back, all smiles,
O’erwhelming us with richest, choicest favours.
(Looks at the diamond.) Can it be real?--Can I believe my eyes?
A gem like thee would grace a monarch’s crown;
Aye! and would buy his empire from him too.
For smaller and less precious gems than thee
Have monarchs been betrayed and empires sold.
For less than thee, Beauties, whose hearts of steel
Not all the worship of true love could move,
Have given their charms to arms they else had loathed.
But oh! thou glittering bauble! Canst thou buy
One sigh of pure affection! one small grain
Of Truth?--Call back the loved ones gone?
Give respite to the wretch condemned to die?
Or win redemption for a soul that’s lost?
Ah, no! Truth is the bright, pure gem!
Compared with her thou’rt very dross indeed.
Yet thou art mine! mine! mine! my own!
Mine only! And as yet no other eyes
But mine have gazed upon thy dazzling splendour.
How strange it seems that thou who hast lain hid
Down in the very heart of Earth; and in
The very womb, as ’twere, of hoary Time,
Cycles long, long ere History was born,
Now comest forth, like some new-chos’n Sultana
From the zenana’s gloom, where all her light,
Her glory, and her beauty, blazed in vain!
The fabled Sleeping Beauty sure thou wert!
I the proud Prince whose vivifying touch
Called thee to light and gave thy splendour life;--
The thought is overpowering; and the feeling
With which I call thee mine is not all joy.
I’ve heard how gems like thee, which it has cost
The owners years of patient toil to win,
Have caused their death when won;--that woe, not bliss,
Have followed their possession; and a thrill
While now I clutch thee seemeth to forebode
Some coming evil. Were it known I go
About with a king’s ransom in my pocket,
My life would not be safe. No! I must hide
Thee as a thief would hide his stolen prize.