And the sleeper awakes with a yearning cry

"Oh, to die! oh, to die!

God, let me die on my mother's grave;

'Tis all my broken heart can crave."

And she lays her head again on the stone
With a long-drawn breath, and a sobbing moan;
While the bridal train (with many a thought
Unspoken of omens with evil fraught)

Sweep down the path from the old church door;
And the bells' glad music is wafted once more
Over the moorland, over the heath,

But they wake her not, for her sleep is death.

Why does the bridegroom's cheek turn pale?
Why in his eye such a look of bale?

Why does he totter, then quicken his pace

As he catches a glimpse of the poor, dead face? Oh, woe betide,

That so fair a bride,

As she who steps with such grace by his side,
Should have faced grim death on her wedding day!
Did THIS thought trouble the bridegroom gay
And dash from his eye the glad light away?

I wist not, for never a word he spoke,
And soon from his face the troubled look
Was gone, and he turned to his beautiful bride
With a radiant smile, and a glance of pride:
And his eye was bright,

And his step was light,

As would beseem with her by his side.

Oh, his smile is glad, and his heart is brave!
What cares he for the dead on the grave?
The faded shawl and faded gown,

And unsmoothed hair of golden brown?

Why should the face on the tombstone grey
Trouble him so on his wedding day?

Forgotten words that were long since spoken,

Thoughts of vows that were made to be broken?
Fling them away!

Be joyous and gay!

Death will never a secret betray.

Quaff the red wine, the glasses ring;
Drink! till the gloomy thoughts take wing;
Drink, and be merry, merry and glad!
With a bride so lovely who would be sad?
Hark! how the wedding bells are ringing!
Over the hills their echoes flinging;
Carried away on the morning breeze
Over the moorland, over the leas,
Riding back on the zephyr's wing-
Joyously, merrily, on they ring.

But she will not wake, her sleep is deep,

And Death can ever a secret keep.

Ah, thy smile may be glad and thy heart may be brave,

And the secret be kept betwixt thee and the grave,

But should'st thou forget it for one short day,
In the gloom of night, from the tombstone grey
Will come the sound of a wailing cry-

"Oh, to die! oh, to die!"

And the bride at thy bosom will raise her head
In affright, as she hears thee call on the dead
In a ghastly dream, on whose wings are borne
The memories of thy wedding morn!
Oh, the woeful sight of the pale dead face!
With the cold dank stone for its resting-place;
Oh, the mocking chime of the old church bell!
It shall seem to peal from the mouth of hell;

Into thy dreams its echoes flinging,
Merrily, madly, ceaselessly ringing!

The white face shall haunt thee!

The bells they shall taunt thee!

Echoed and tossed on the withering breath

Of a curse that shall cling round thy soul till death!

CHARLOTTE M. GRIFFITHS.

[By kind permission of the authoress.]

THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.

"Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:

There were some that ran and some that leapt,

Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untouched by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran,—
Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can;

But the Usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessèd breeze;

For a burning thought was in his brow,
And his bosom ill at ease:

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read
The book upon his knees!

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide :

Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the pond'rous tome,
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusky covers close,
And fixed the brazen hasp:

"Oh, God! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,

Some moody turns he took,

Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,—

And lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book.

"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,

"It is "The Death of Abel.""

F

The Usher took six hasty strides,
As smit with sudden pain,
Six hasty strides beyond the place,
Then slowly back again;

And down he sat beside the lad,
And talked with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men,
Whose deeds tradition saves;
Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves;
Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn,
And murders done in caves;

And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod,-
Ay, how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;
And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!

He told how murderers walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,-

With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!

"And well," quoth he, "I know for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme,——

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder, in a dream!