The blood gushed out amain! For every clot a burning spot Was scorching in my brain! "My head was like an ardent coal, My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, A dozen times I groaned, the dead Had never groaned but twice! "And now, from forth the frowning sky, From the heaven's topmost height, I heard a voice, the awful voice Of the blood-avenging sprite : Thou guilty man! take up thy dead, "And I took the dreary body up, "Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, And vanished in the pool; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, And washed my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young, That evening in the school. "O Heaven! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in evening hymn; Like a devil of the pit I seemed, Mid holy cherubim ! "And peace went with them, one and all, And each calm pillow spread; But Guilt was my grim chamberlain, And drew my midnight curtains round "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; For Sin had rendered unto her "One stern tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave! Stronger and stronger every pulse "Heavily I rose up, as soon And sought the black accurséd 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 murdered man! "And all that day I read in school, But my thought was otherwhere; And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, "Then down I cast me on my face, And first began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one "So wills the fierce avenging sprite, "O God! that horrid, horrid dream Again, again, with dizzy brain, And my red right hand grows raging hot, "And still no peace for the restless clay It stands before me now!" That very night, while gentle sleep Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn Through the cold and heavy mist; Thomas Hood. Malmesbury. RESTORATION OF MALMESBURY ABBEY. MONASTIC and time-consecrated fane! Thou hast put on thy shapely state again, The Host high raised or fuming censer swung; Like giants seem to guard the dust beneath. |