Where through the window, opening o’er the glade, The shivering winds of night an entrance made, There was an old man—old in years and care— With wrinkled brow and scant and frosty hair, Stretched out in sleep; the earliest moonbeams played On the hard pillow where his cheek was laid, And, with her spirit hand, the wind of night Lifted the thin locks from his temples white. Such ghastly pallor o’er the features spread, So marble cold appeared the silent head, That one might start, despite the deep drawn breath, At life that looked so fearfully like death. And Gilbert gazed, and as he gazed, a change Passed o’er those features—beautiful but strange— Such magic change as one might guess would be When bursts the morning o’er a moonlit sea; His brow relaxed, his thin lips dropped apart, More boldly heaved his breast and leaped his heart, And a faint smile, the ghost of gladness gone, Played round his mouth like radiance round the sun. Now sinks his breathing indistinct and low— Hark! from his lips unmeaning murmurs flow— He speaks: “_Dear father—mother—_” Heaven above! That old man dreams of childhood’s guiltless love. The daylight shines not on a fiercer brow, A fiercer eye, a haughtier lip, and now, Serenely, sweetly, there, a sinless boy, He smiles in slumber o’er a childish joy. To Gilbert’s eyes those words recalled a scene, That ah! no more for Gilbert shall be green; And at those syllables so lightly spoke, Long channeled fountains in his bosom broke; Along his cheek faint flushes went and came, As o’er an evening cloud the lightning’s flame; And his frame thrilled and trembled as the trees All quivering bend them to the autumn breeze. Hell has no fiend like memory, when she brings Repentance without hope, remorse’s stings, And a long file of days, in sable weeds, Mourning and weeping over past misdeeds. Like a pale ghost that shuns the rising day, Strode Gilbert fast, but stealthily, away; Nor paused he till again the dewy sod With lighter heart and firmer step he trod. VII.