With fingers bloody red! "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; My fevered eyes I dared not close, But stared aghast at Sleep: For Sin had rendered unto her The keys of Hell to keep! "All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That racked me all the time; A 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 sought the black accursed pool With a wild misgiving eye; And I saw the Dead in the river bed, For the faithless stream was dry. "Merrily rose the lark, and shook The dewdrop from its wing; But I never marked 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 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, And first began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one That earth refused to keep: Or land or sea, though he should be Ten thousand fathoms deep. "So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, Till blood for blood atones! Ay, though he's buried in a cave, And trodden down with stones, And years have rotted off his flesh,-- The world shall see his bones! "Oh, God! that horrid, horrid dream Besets me now awake! Again--again, with dizzy brain, The human life I take; And my red right hand grows raging hot, Like Cranmer's at the stake. [Illustration: 0209] "And still no peace for the restless clay, Will wave or mould allow; The horrid thing pursues my soul,-- It stands before me now!" The fearful Boy looked up, and saw Huge drops upon his brow. That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walked between, With gyves upon his wrist. ----T. Hood. THE VOYAGE WITH THE NAUTILUS |I made myself a little boat, As trim as trim could be; I made it of a great pearl shell Found in the Indian Sea. I made my masts of wild sea-rush That grew on a secret shore, And the scarlet plume of the halcyon Was the pleasant flag I bore. For my sails I took the butterfly's wings., For my ropes the spider's line;