"And peace went with them, one and all, And each calm pillow spread;

But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain
That lighted me to bed;

And drew my midnight curtains round,
With fingers bloody red!

"All night I lay in agony,

In anguish dark and deep; My fever'd eyes I dared not close, But stared aghast at Sleep:

For Sin had render'd 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 rack'd 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 dew-drop from its wing;
But I never mark'd 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 murder'd 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.

"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 look'd up, and saw
Huge drops upon his brow.

That very night, while gentle sleep
The urchin eyelids kiss'd,
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;

And Eugene Aram walk'd between,
With gyves upon his wrist.

THE ELM TREE:

A DREAM IN THE WOODS.

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees."

AS YOU LIKE IT.

'Twas in a shady Avenue, Where lofty Elms abound— And from a Tree

There came to me

A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh,
Amid the boughs to moan;
It mutter'd in the stem, and then
The roots took up the tone;
As if beneath the dewy grass
The dead began to groan.

No breeze there was to stir the leaves;
No bolts that tempests launch,
To rend the trunk or rugged bark;
No gale to bend the branch;
No quake of earth to heave the roots,
That stood so stiff and staunch.

No bird was preening up aloft,
To rustle with its wing;
No squirrel, in its sport or fear,
From bough to bough to spring;
The solid bole

Had ne'er a hole

To hide a living thing!

No scooping hollow cell to lodge
A furtive beast or fowl,

The martin, bat,

Or forest cat

That nightly loves to prowl, Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud The moping, snoring owl.

But still the sound was in my ear,
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground-
'Twas in a shady Avenue

Where lofty Elms abound.

O hath the Dryad still a tongue
In this ungenial clime ?
Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice
As in the classic prime-
To make the forest voluble,
As in the olden time ?

The olden time is dead and gone;
Its years have fill'd their sum-
And e'en in Greece-her native Greece-
The Sylvan Nymph is dumb-