Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again; And talk'd with him of Cain; And, long since then, of bloody men, And how the sprites of injured men Are seen in dreams from God! "And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth, Their pangs must be extreme, Wo, wo, unutterable wo Who spill life's sacred stream! For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream! "One that had never done me wrongA feeble man, and old; I led him to a lonely field, The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold! "Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, "Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, That murder could not kill! "And, lo! the universal air Seem'd lit with ghastly flame,- "O God, it made me quake to see Was scorching in my brain! My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, "I took the dreary body up, And cast it in a stream,- "Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, And vanish'd in the pool; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands And wash'd my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young That evening in the school! "O heaven, to think of their white souls, I could not share in childish prayer, "And peace went with them one and all, But guilt was my grim chamberlain And drew my midnight curtains round, "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; The keys of hell to keep! "All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, "One stern, tyrannic thought, that made Did that temptation crave,— The dead man in his grave! Heavily I rose up,—as soon "Merrily rose the lark, and shook But I never mark'd its morning flight, I never heard it sing: For I was stooping once again Under the horrid thing. "With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran,— There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began: In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the murder'd man! "And all that day I read in school, But my thought was other where; As soon as the mid-day task was done, In secret I was there: And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, And still the corse was bare! "Then down I cast me on my face, And first began to weep, And trodden down with stones, "O God, that horrid, horrid dream And my red right hand grows raging hot, "And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing pursues my soul,— It stands before me now!"- That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin eyelids kiss'd, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walk'd between, With gyves upon his wrist. THE SYLVAN FAIRY. THEN next a merry woodsman, clad in green, On trees, and all their furniture of green, Training the young boughs airily to bend, And show blue snatches of the sky between:Or knit more close intricacies, to screen Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them best, But most the timid blackbird's-she, that seen, Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest, Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast. "We bend each tree in proper attitude, And founting willows train in silvery falls; We frame all shady roofs and arches rude, And verdant aisles leading to Dryad's halls, Or deep recesses where the echo calls;— We shape all plumy trees against the sky, And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals,When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply, Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh. "Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell, And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, That haply some lone musing wight may spell Dainty Aminta,-Gentle Rosalind,— Or chastest Laura,-sweetly call'd to mind In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down; And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined And fragrant ivy,—or rich moss, whose brown Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down. "And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer, Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release All populous haunts, and roam'd in forests rude, To hide himself from man. But I had clothed My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued, Where only foxes and wild cats intrude, Till we were come beside an ancient tree Late blasted by a storm. Here he renew'd His loud complaints,-choosing that spot to be The scene of his last horrid tragedy. It was a wild and melancholy glen, Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, Push'd through the rotten sod for fear's remark; |