r'd man!

'And all that day I read in school,
But my thought was otherwhere!
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!
Aye, 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 me! that horrid, horrid dream
Besets me now awake!
Again, again, with a 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 looked 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.

_T. Hood_

LII

_THE BELEAGUERED CITY_

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And with a sorrowful deep sound,
The river flow'd between.

No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasp'd the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.

But when the old cathedral bell
Proclaim'd the morning prayer,
The wild pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmed air.

Down the broad valley fast and far,
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

_H. W. Longfellow_

LIII

_JAFFAR_

Jaffar, 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,