dew-drop from its wing;
But I never mark'd 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 murder'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;
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.

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's 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.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT

WITH fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--

Stitch--stitch--stitch
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the Song of the Shirt.

'Work--work--work
While the cock is crowing aloof;
And work--work--work
Till the stars shine through the roof
It 's O! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save
If this is Christian work!

'Work--work--work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work--work--work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim
I Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

'O men with Sisters dear!
O men with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch--stitch--stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double