The blood gushed out amain! For every clot a burning spot Was scorching in my brain!

"My head was like an ardent coal,
My heart as solid ice;

My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,
Was at the Devil's price.

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 hide it from my sight!'

"And I took the dreary body up,
And cast it in a stream,
The sluggish water, black as ink,
The depth was so extreme:
My gentle boy, remember! this
Is nothing but a dream!

"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,
That lighted me to bed,

And drew my midnight curtains round
With fingers bloody red!

"All night I lay in agony,

In anguish dark and deep;
My fevered eyes I dared not close,
But stared aghast at Sleep;

For Sin had rendered unto her
The keys of hell to keep!

"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
As light was in the sky,

And sought the black accurséd pool
With a wild misgiving eye;

And I saw the dead in the river-bed,
For the faithless stream was dry.

"Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing;
But I never marked its morning flight,

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;
As soon as the midday 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!
Ay, 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!

"O God! that horrid, horrid dream
Besets me now awake!

Again, again, with 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's eyelids kissed,

Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn

Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walked between,
With gyves upon his wrist.

Thomas Hood.

Malmesbury.

RESTORATION OF MALMESBURY ABBEY.

MONASTIC and time-consecrated fane!

Thou hast put on thy shapely state again,
Almost august as in thy early day,
Ere ruthless Henry rent thy pomp away.
No more the mass on holidays is sung,

The Host high raised or fuming censer swung;
No more, in amice white, the Fathers slow
With lighted tapers in long order go;
Yet the tall window lifts its archéd height,
As to admit heaven's pale but purer light;
Those massy clustered columns, whose long rows,
Even at noonday, in shadowy pomp repose
Amid the silent sanctity of death,

Like giants seem to guard the dust beneath.
Those roofs re-echo (though no altars blaze)
The prayer of penitence, the hymn of praise;
Whilst meek religion's self, as with a smile,
Reprints the tracery of the holy pile,
Worthy its guest, the temple. What remains?
O mightiest Master! thy immortal strains