I counted them

I knew them all,

Each with its rope around its neck,
Marshalled by the churchyard wall.

'The stiff policeman, passing along,
Saw them not, nor made delay;
A reeling bacchanal, shouting a song,
Looked at the clock, and went his way;
A troop of girls, with painted cheeks,
Laughing and yelling in drunken glee,
Passed like a gust, and never looked
At the sight so palpable to me.

I saw them-heard them-felt their breath
Musty and raw and damp as death.

'These women three, these fearful shapes,
Looked at me through Newgate stone,
And raised their fingers, skinny and lank,
Whispering low in under tone:

"His hour draws near, -he's one of us,
His gibbet is built, — his noose is tied;
They have put his name on his coffin lid:
The law of blood shall be satisfied.

He shall rest with us, and his name shall be
A by-word and a mockery."

160

'I whispered to one, "What hadst thou done?" She answered, whispering, and I heardAlthough a chime rang at the time

Every sentence, every word,

Clear, above the pealing bells:

104

THE PHANTOMS OF ST. SEPULCHRE.

“I was mad, and slew my child;
Better than life, God knows, I loved it;
But pain and hunger drove me wild.
Scorn and hunger, and grief and care,
And I slew it in my despair.

And for this deed they raised the gibbet;
For this deed the noose they tied ;

And I hung and swung in the sight of men,
And the law of blood was satisfied."

'I said to the second, "What didst thou?"
Her keen eyes flashed unearthly shine.
"I married a youth when I was young,
And thought all happiness was mine;

But they stole him from me, to fight the French;
And I was left in the world alone,

To beg or steal to live or die,

Robbed of my stay, my all, my own.
England stole my lord from me,

I stole a ribbon, was caught and tried ;
And I hung and swung in the sight of men,
And the law of blood was satisfied."

'I said to the third, "What crime was thine?"
"Crime!" she answered, in accents meek,
"The babe that sucks at its mother's breast,
And smiles with its little dimpled cheek,
Is not more innocent than I.

But truth was feeble,

error was strong;

And guiltless of a deed of shame,
Men's justice did me cruel wrong.

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136

They would not hear my truthful words;
They thought me filled with stubborn pride.
And I hung and swung in the sight of men,
And the law of blood was satisfied."

'Then one and all, by that churchyard wall,
Raised their skinny hands at me;
Their voices mingling like the sound
Of rustling leaves in a withering tree :
"His hour has come, he's one of us;
His gibbet is built, his noose is tied;

His knell shall ring, and his corpse shall swing,
And the law of blood shall be satisfied."

They vanished! I saw them, one by one, With their bare blue feet on the drifted snow, Sink like a thaw, when the sun is up,

To their wormy solitudes below.

Though you may deem this was a dream,

My facts are tangible facts to me;

For the sight grows clear as death draws near,
And looks into futurity.'

THE CONFESSION.

I was betrayed, and cruelly undone.
Smitten to anguish in my sorest part,
And so disgusted with all human life,
That curses came spontaneous to my lips :
I cursed the day. I cursed

my

fellow-men;

I cursed my God, that made so bad a world.
Goaded to frenzy, by excess of pain,

I tore my hair, I dashed my bleeding head

Against a wall; sobbed, wept, and gnashed my teeth. I howled anathemas against myself

For being man, and living on the earth.

When suddenly a sweet and heavenly calm
Fell on my spirit; and a mild clear light
Diffused itself about me where I stood;
And I was conscious of a visible power
Unutterably great, divinely good;

And a voice spake, not angrily, but sad :

'Weak and unjust! Thou hast blasphemed thy God;
God, whom thou knowest not. Thou hast maligned
Thy fellow-men. Live, till thou knowest both.'
The awful glory stole away my sense;

Th' excess of splendor dazzled my dim eyes;

The clear words made me dumb: and for a while

Torpid and clod-like on the earth I lay,
Till th' ineffable brightness disappeared.
And when I wakened, life was misery;
Burden too mighty for my flesh to bear.
'Live, till I know my God! That might I, well;
But live in sorrow till I know mankind?
Heavy the curse! But if it must be borne,
Let me gain knowledge quickly, and so die!'
Long did I live. One hundred years of time
I held the faith that all my people held;
Observed their laws and to a God of FEAR

Knelt down in awe, and worshipped his dread name.
But still I lived, and cursed the weary days;
And had no love or reverence for my kind.
And still my pain grew with my discontent,
That I could not release myself and die.

Youth in my limbs, but age upon my heart, I roamed the earth. I dwelt among the Greeks: I saw, well pleased, the majesty of life; The power of beauty, and the sense of joy; The physical grandeur of the earth and heaven. But God himself was stranger to my thought: I had a worship, but no inward faith ; I prayed to gods of human lineament, Emblems of natural forces and desires; I filled the woods with visionary shapes; Peopled the hills, the vales, the rocks, the streams, The dark caves, and the sunny mountain-tops. With forms of beauty; and conversed with them Upon unseen, unreal phantasies,

Until they seemed so palpable to sight,