I am the only being whose doom <br />No tongue would ask no eye would mourn <br />I never caused a thought of gloom <br />A smile of joy since I was born <br /> <br />In secret pleasure - secret tears <br />This changeful life has slipped away <br />As friendless after eighteen years <br />As lone as on my natal day <br /> <br />There have been times I cannot hide <br />There have been times when this was drear <br />When my sad soul forgot its pride <br />And longed for one to love me here <br /> <br />But those were in the early glow <br />Of feelings since subdued by care <br />And they have died so long ago <br />I hardly now believe they were <br /> <br />First melted off the hope of youth <br />Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew <br />And then experience told me truth <br />In mortal bosoms never grew <br /> <br />'Twas grief enough to think mankind <br />All hollow servile insincere - <br />But worse to trust to my own mind <br />And find the same corruption there<br /><br />Emily Jane Brontë<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-am-the-only-being-whose-doom/
