"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, 'Mid holy cherubim ! 'And peace went with them, one and all, And drew my midnight curtains round, With fingers bloody red! 'All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; My fever'd eyes I dared not close, For sin had render'd unto her ́All night I lay in agony, 'One stern tyrannic thought that made 'Heavily I rose up—as soon Merrily rose the lark, and shook 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, And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, 'Then down I cast me on my face, For I knew my secret then was one 'So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 'Oh me! 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. 'And still no peace for the restless clay The horrid thing pursues my soul- That very night, while gentle sleep Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, And Eugene Aram walk'd between, With gyves upon his wrist. T. Hood LII THE BELEAGUERED CITY Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, White as a sea-fog, landward bound, No other voice nor sound was there, But when the old cathedral bell Down the broad valley fast and far, Up rose the glorious morning star, The ghastly host was dead. LIII JAFFAR H. W. Longfellow Jaffar, the Barmecide, the good Vizier, The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer. Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust; And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust Of what the good, and e'en the bad might say, All but the brave Mondeer.-He, proud to show On all they owed to the divine Jaffar. 'Bring me this man,' the caliph cried : the man he; 'From bonds far worse Jaffar deliver'd me; From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears; Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears; Restor'd me, loved me, put me on a par With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar?' Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss, And hold the giver as thou deemest fit.' H |