n'd against,--
Unwarp'd and undispeptic, gave to life
A higher zest.
Year after year swept by,
And Conrad's symmetry of form and face
Grew more conspicuous. Yet he fail'd to win
Approval from the pious, or desire
To seek him as companion for their sons.

--At school and college he defied restraint,
And round the associates of his idle hours
Threw a mysterious veil. But rumor spake
Of them, as those who would be sure to bring
Disgrace and infamy.
Strong thirst for gold
Sprang with the weeds of vice. His mother's purse
Was drain'd for him, and when at length she spake
In warm remonstrance, he with rudeness rush'd
Out of her presence, or withdrew himself
All night from her abode. Then she was fain
To appease his anger by some lavish gift
From scant resources, which she ill could spare,
Making the evil worse.
The growth of sin
Is rank and rapid when the youthful heart
Abjures the sway of duty. Weaving oft
The mesh of falsehood, may it not forget
What the truth is? The wavering, moral sense
Depraved and weaken'd, fails to grasp the clue
Of certainty, nor scruples to deny
Words utter'd, and deeds done, for conscience sleeps
Stifled, and callous. Fearful must it be,
When Truth offended and austere, confronts
The false soul at Heaven's bar.

* * * * *

An aged man
Dwelt by himself upon a dreary moor,
And it was whisper'd that a miser's hoard
Absorb'd his thoughts.
There, at the midnight hour
The unwonted flash of lights was seen by those
Who chanced to pass, and entering in, they found
The helpless inmate murder'd in his bed,
And the house rifled.
Differing tracks they mark'd
Of flying footsteps in the moisten'd soil,
And eager search ensued.
At length, close hid
In a dense thicket, Conrad they espied,
His shoes besmear'd with blood. Question'd of those
Who with him in this work of horror join'd,
He answered nothing.
All unmov'd he stood
Upon his trial, the nefarious deed
Denying, and of his accomplices
Disclosing nought. But still there seem'd a chain
Of evidence to bind him in its coil,
And Justice had her course. The prison bolts
Closed heavily behind him, and his doom
For years, with felons was incorporate.

* * * * *

Of the wild anguish and despair that reign'd
In his ancestral home, no wo