"My gentle lad, what is 't you read Romance or fairy fable? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable ?" The young boy gave an upward glance He told how murderers walked the earth With crimson clouds before their eyes, "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 wrong— A 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, One hurried gash with a hasty knife→ "Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, And yet I feared him all the more, There was a manhood in his look, "And lo! the universal air Seemed lit with ghastly flame- "Oh, God! it made me quake to see The blood gushed out amain! "My head was like an ardent coal, My heart as solid ice; My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, A dozen times I groaned; the dead "And now from forth the frowning sky, "I took the dreary body up, "Down went the corpse with a hollow plunge, And vanished in the pool; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, And washed my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young That evening in the school! "Oh 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, With fingers bloody red! "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; "All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That racked me all the timeA mighty yearning, like the first Fierce impulse unto crime! "One stern, tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave; Stronger and stronger every pulse Did that temptation crave— Still urging me to go and see The dead man in his grave! "Heavily I rose up as soon As light was in the sky- And I saw the dead in the river bed, "Merrily rose the lark, and shook I never heard it sing: For I was stopping 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 murdered 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, For I knew my secret then was one Or land or sea, though he should be "So wills the fierce avenging sprite, “Oh God, that horrid, horrid dream Besets me now awake! Again-again, with a dizzy brain The human life I take; And my red right hand grows raging hot, Like Cranmer's at the stake. |