My fever'd eyes I dared not close, 'All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That rack'd me all the timeA 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 And sought the black accursed pool And I saw the dead, in the river bed, 'Merrily rose the lark, and shook 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, And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, 'Then down I cast me on my face, For I knew my secret then was one Or land, or sea, though he should be 'So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 'Oh me! that horrid, horrid dream Again, again, with a dizzy brain, And my red right hand grows raging hot, 'And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing pursues my soul That very night, while gentle sleep Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, T. Hood LII THE BELEAGUERED CITY ESIDE the Moldau's rushing stream, BE With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream, White as a sea-fog, landward bound, No other voice nor sound was there, But when the old cathedral bell The wild pavilions rose and fell On the alarmed air. Down the broad valley fast and far, Up rose the glorious morning star, The ghastly host was dead. J LIII JAFFAR AFFAR, the Barmecide, the good Vizier, The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer. Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust; And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust Of what the good, and e'en the bad might say, All but the brave Mondeer. - He, proud to show How far for love a grateful soul could go, And facing death for very scorn and grief, (For his great heart wanted a great relief,) Stood forth in Bagdad, daily in the square 'Bring me this man,' the caliph cried: the man Was brought, was gazed upon. The mutes began To bind his arms. 'Welcome, brave cords,' cried he ; 'From bonds far worse Jaffar deliver'd me; From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears; Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears; Restor❜d me, loved me, put me on a par With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar?' Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this He said, 'Let worth grow frenzied if it will; And hold the giver as thou deemest fit.' 'Gifts!' cried the friend. He took; and holding it High toward the heavens, as though to meet his star, Exclaim'd, 'This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffar.' Leigh Hunt LIV COLIN AND LUCY HREE times, all in the dead of night, THE A bell was heard to ring; And shrieking at the window thrice, The raven flapp'd his wing. Too well the love-lorn maiden knew The virgins weeping round : |