Miserrimus

David Park Barnitz

In the last hopeless depth of hell's dark tomb
Wherein I sit for aye with bowed head
In anguish and great sorrow buried
Where never sun the blackness doth illume,

I saw pass by me through the bitter gloom
All them whom life with deepest grief hath fed,
Whom also here among the hopeless dead
Through hell pursueth maniac, gnashing doom.

Me there forever crusht to hopeless stone
They passt by, all the damn'd; they shall not know
Through all eternity but only woe,
Now hear no sound but sound of them that groan.

And unto me that sat than these more low,
These seem'd like happy gods that heaven own;
They past away; and there in hell alone
My heart took up again its ancient woe.