But all her loveliness is not yet flown:
She smiled in death, and still her cold pale face
Retains that smile; as when a waveless lake,
In which the wintry stars all bright appear,
Is sheeted by a nightly frost with ice,
Still it reflects the face of heaven unchanged,
Unruffled by the breeze or sweeping blast.
Again that knell! The slow procession stops:
The pall withdrawn, Death's altar, thick emboss'd
With melancholy ornaments-(the name,
The record of her blossoming age)-appears
Unveil'd, and on it dust to dust is thrown,
The final rite. Oh! hark that sullen sound!
Upon the lower'd bier the shovell'd clay
Falls fast, and fills the void.
That stands aloof, with haggard, wistful eye,
As if he coveted the closing grave?
And he does covet it-his wish is death!
The dread resolve is fix'd; his own right-hand
Is sworn to do the deed. The day of rest
No peace, no comfort, brings his woe-worn spirit:
Self-cursed, the hallow'd dome he dreads to enter!
He dares not pray-he dares not sigh a hope;
Annihilation is his only heaven.
Loathsome the converse of his friends, he shuns
The human face; in every careless eye
Suspicion of his purpose seems to lurk.
Deep piny shades he loves, where no sweet note
Is warbled, where the rook unceasing caws;
Or far in moors, remote from house or hut,
Where animated nature seems extinct,
Where even the hum of wandering bee ne'er breaks
The quiet slumber of the level waste;
Where vegetation's traces almost fail,
Save where the leafless cannachs wave their tufts
Of silky white, or massy oaken trunks
Half-buried lie, and tell where greenwoods grew,
There on the heathless moss outstretch'd he broods
O'er all his ever-changing plans of death:
The time, place, means, sweep like a stormy rack,
In fleet succession, o'er his clouded soul-
The poniard, and the opium draught that brings
Death by degrees, but leaves an awful chasm
Between the act and consequence, the flash
Sulphureous, fraught with instantaneous death;-
The ruin'd tower perch'd on some jutting rock,
So high that, 'tween the leap and dash below,
The breath might take its flight in midway air,—
This pleases for a while; but on the brink,
Back from the toppling edge his fancy shrinks
In horror. Sleep at last his breast becalms,——
He dreams 'tis done; but starting wild awakes,
Resigning to despair his dream of joy.
Then hope, faint hope, revives-hope, that Despair
May to his aid let loose the demon Frenzy,
To lead scared Conscience blindfold o'er the brink Of self-destruction's cataract of blood.
Most miserable, most incongruous wretch!
Darest thou to spurn thy life, the boon of God,
Yet dreadest to approach his holy place?
O dare to enter in! may be some word,
Or sweetly chanted strain, will in thy heart
Awake a chord in unison with life.
What are thy fancied woes to his, whose fate
Is (sentence dire!) incurable disease,—
The outcast of a lazar-house, homeless,
Or with a home where eyes do scowl on him!
Yet he, even he, with feeble steps draws near,
With trembling voice joins in the song of praise.
Patient he waits the hour of his release;
He knows he has a home beyond the grave.
Or turn thee to that house, with studded doors
And iron-vizor'd windows; even there
The Sabbath sheds a beam of bliss, though faint!
The debtor's friends (for still he has some friends)
Have time to visit him; the blossoming pea
That climbs the rust-worn bars seems fresher tinged,
And on the little turf this day renew'd,
The lark, his prison-mate, quivers the wing
With more than wonted joy. See, through the bars,
That pallid face retreating from the view,
That glittering eye following, with hopeless look,
The friends of former years, now passing by
In peaceful fellowship to worship God;
With them, in days of youthful years, he roam’d
O'er hill and dale, o'er broomy knowe; and wist
As little as the blithest of the band
Of this his lot-condemn'd, condemn'd unheard,
The party for his judge: among the throng,
The Pharisaical hard-hearted man
He sees pass on, to join the heaven-taught prayer,
"Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors"-
From unforgiving lips most impious prayer!
O happier far the victim than the hand
That deals the legal stab! The injured man
Enjoys internal, settled calm; to him
The Sabbath bell sounds peace; he loves to meet
His fellow-sufferers to pray and praise,--
And many a prayer, as pure as e'er was breathed
In holy fanes, is sighed in prison halls.
Ah me! that clank of chains, as kneel and rise
The death-doom'd row! But see, a smile illumes
The face of some; perhaps they 're guiltless: Oh!
And must high-minded honesty endure
The ignominy of a felon's fate!
No, 'tis not ignominious to be wrong'd:
No, conscious exultation swells their hearts
To think the day draws nigh, when in the view
Of angels, and of just men perfect made,
The mark which rashness branded on their names
Shall be effaced-when wafted on life's storm,
Their soul shall reach the Sabbath of the skies;
As birds from bleak Norwegia's wintry coast,
Blown out to sea, strive to regain the shore,
But, vainly striving, yield them to the blast;
Swept o'er the deep to Albion's genial isle,
Amazed they light amid the bloomy sprays
Of some green vale, there to enjoy new loves,
And join in harmony unheard before.
The land is groaning 'neath the guilt of blood
Spilt wantonly: for every death-doom'd man,
Who, in his boyhood, has been left untaught
"That Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace," unjustly dies.
But, ah! how many are thus left untaught!
How many would be left, but for the band
United to keep holy to the Lord
A portion of his day, by teaching those
Whom Jesus loved with forth-stretch'd hand to bless!
Behold yon motley train, by two and two,
Each with a Bible 'neath its little arm,
Approach well-pleased, as if they went to play,
The dome where simple lore is learnt unbought;
And mark the father 'mid the sideway throng,—
Well do I know him by his glistening eye,
That follows stedfastly one of the line,
A dark seafaring man he looks to be;
And much it glads his boding heart to think,
That when once more he sails the vallied deep,
His child shall still receive Instruction's boon.
But hark! a noise-a cry-a gleam of swords!-
Resistance is in vain, he 's borne away,
Nor is allow'd to clasp his weeping child.
My innocent, so helpless, yet so gay, How could I bear to be thus rudely torn From thee! to see thee lift thy little arm, And impotently strike the ruffian man! To hear thee bid him chidingly-begone!
O ye who live at home, and kiss each eve Your sleeping infants ere you go to rest, And, 'waken'd by their call, lift up your eyes Upon their morning smile,-think, think of those, Who, torn away without one farewell word To wife or children, sigh the day of life In banishment from all that's dear to man! O raise your voices in one general peal
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