True sympathy the Sailor's looks expressed,
Ha looks for pondering he was mute the while.
Of social Order's care for wretchedness,
Of Time's sure help to calm and reconcile,
Jay's second spring and Hope's long-treasured
smile,
Twas not for him to speak-a man so tried.
Yet, to relieve her heart, in friendly style
Proverbaal words of comfort he applied,
A woman stood with quivering lips and pale,
And, pointing to a little child that lay
Stretched on the ground, began a piteous tale;
How in a simple freak of thoughtless play
He had provoked his father, who straightway,
As if each blow were deadlier than the last,
Struck the poor innocent. Pallid with dismay
The Soldier's Widow heard and stood aghast;
And stern looks on the man her grey-haired Com-
rade cast.
His voice with indignation rising high
Such further deed in manhood's name forbade ;
The peasant, wild in passion, made reply
With bitter insult and revilings sad;
Asked him in scorn what business there he had ;
What kind of plunder he was hunting now;
The gallows would one day of him be glad ;—
Though inward anguish damped the Sailor's brow,
Yet calm he seemed as thoughts so poignant would
allow.
Softly he stroked the child, who lay outstretched
With face to earth; and, as the boy turned round
His battered head, a groan the Sailor fetched
As if he saw-there and upon that ground-
Strange repetition of the deadly wound
He had himself inflicted. Through his brain
At once the griding iron passage found;
Deluge of tender thoughts then rushed amain,
Nor could his sunken eyes the starting tear restrain.
Within himself he said-What hearts have we !
The blessing this a father gives his child!
Yet happy thou, poor boy! compared with me,
Suffering not doing ill-fate far more mild.
The stranger's looks and tears of wrath beguiled
The father, and relenting thoughts awoke ;
And not in vain, while they went pacing side by He kissed his son--so all was reconciled.
With high and higher mounts with silver gleam: Even for the man who wears the warmest fleece;
Far spectacle, but instantly a scream
Thrace bursting shrill did all remark prevent ;
They paased, and heard a hoarser voice blaspheme,
And feruale cries. Their course they thither bent,
Am. met a man who foamed with anger vehement.
Much need have ye that time more closely draw
The bond of nature, all unkindness cease,
And that among so few there still be peace :
Else can ye hope but with such numerous foes
Your pains shall ever with your years increase ?"-
A sailor's wife I knew a widow's cares,
Yet two sweet little ones partook my bed;
Hope cheered my dreams, and to my daily prayers
Our heavenly Father granted each day's bread;
Til one was found by stroke of violence dead,
Whose body near our cottage chanced to lie ;
A dire suspicion drove us from our shed;
In vain to find a friendly face we try,
She slept in peace,-his pulses throbbed and stopped,
Breathless he gazed upon her face,—then took
Her hand in his, and raised it, but both dropped,
When on his own he cast a rueful look.
His ears were never silent; sleep forsook
His burning eyelids stretched and stiff as lead;
All night from time to time under him shook
The floor as he lay shuddering on his bed;
Nor could we live together those poor boys and I; And oft he groaned aloud, "O God, that I were
His hand had wrought; and when, in the hour of | For act and suffering, to the city straight
death,
He saw his Wife's lips move his name to bless
With her last words, unable to suppress
He anguish, with his heart he ceased to strive;
And, weeping loud in this extreme distress,
He ened" Do pity me! That thou shouldst live
I anther ask nor wish-forgive me, but forgive!"
To tell the change that Voice within her wrought
Nature by sign or sound made no essay;
A sudin joy surprised expiring thought,
And every mortal pang dissolved away.
Earne gently to a bed, in death she lay;
I still while over her the husband bent,
Ang was in her face which seemed to say,
De best; by sight of thee from heaven was sent
Face to my parting soul, the fulness of content.”
He journeyed, and forthwith his crime declared:
"And from your doom," he added, "now I wait,
Nor let it linger long, the murderer's fate."
Not ineffectual was that piteous claim :
"O welcome sentence which will end though late,"
He said, "the pangs that to my conscience came
Out of that deed. My trust, Saviour! is in thy
name!"
His fate was pitied. Him in iron case
(Reader, forgive the intolerable thought)
They hung not :-no one on his form or face
Could gaze, as on a show by idlers sought;
No kindred sufferer, to his death-place brought
By lawless curiosity or chance,
When into storm the evening sky is wrought,
Upon his swinging corse an eye can glance,
And drop, as he once dropped, in miserable trance.
READERS already acquainted with my Poems will recognise, in the following composition, some eight or ten lines. which I have not scrupled to retain in the places where they originally stood. It is proper however to add, that they would not have been used elsewhere, if I had foreseen the time when I might be induced to publish this Tragedy. February 28, 1842.
Lacy. The Troop will be impatient; let us hie
Back to our post, and strip the Scottish Foray
Of their rich Spoil, ere they recross the Border.
-Pity that our young Chief will have no part
In this good service.
Wal.
Rather let us grieve
That, in the undertaking which has caused
His absence, he hath sought, whate'er his aim,
Companionship with One of crooked ways,
From whose perverted soul can come no good
To our confiding, open-hearted, Leader.
Lacy. True; and, remembering how the Band
Mar. (looking at them). The wild rose, and the Though I have never seen his face, methinks,
poppy, and the nightshade :
Which is your favorite, Oswald ?
There cannot come a day when I shall cease
To love him. I remember, when a Boy
That which, while it is of scarcely seven years' growth, beneath the Elm
You are too fearful; yet must I confess,
Our march of yesterday had better suited
A firmer step than mine.
Idon.
That dismal Moor-
In spite of all the larks that cheered our path,
I never can forgive it: but how steadily
You paced along, when the bewildering moonlight
Mocked me with many a strange fantastic shape !-
I thought the Convent never would appear;
It seemed to move away from us and yet,
That you are thus the fault is mine; for the air
Was soft and warm, no dew lay on the grass,
And midway on the waste ere night had fallen
I spied a Covert walled and roofed with sods-
A miniature; belike some Shepherd-boy,
Who might have found a nothing-doing hour
Heavier than work, raised it: within that hut
We might have made a kindly bed of heath,
And thankfully there rested side by side
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