No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-- But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him. But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his false fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-- But we left him alone with his glory. C. Wolfe. CCXXVII. THE MANIAC. Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe! She is not mad who kneels to thee, For what I'm now, too well I know, And what I was, and what should be. I'll rave no more in proud despair; My language shall be mild, though sad: But yet I firmly, truly swear, I am not mad, I am not mad. My tyrant husband forged the tale Which chains me in this dismal cell; My fate unknown my friends bewail-- Oh! jailer, haste that fate to tell; Oh! haste my father's heart to cheer: His heart at once 't will grieve and glad To know though kept a captive here, I am not mad, I am not mad. He smiles in scorn, and turns the key; He quits the grate; I knelt in vain; His glimmering lamp still, still I see-- 'T is gone! and all is gloom again. Cold, bitter cold!--No warmth! no light!-- Life, all thy comforts once I had; Yet here I'm chained, this freezing night, Although not mad; no, no, not mad.