University of Virginia Library

“My native home is far away,
Beyond the hills of Alleghane,
Where 'gainst the granite mountains play
The lightning-fires in vain;
Where men are brave, and women fair—
A hardy, famed, and virtuous race—
One of whose proudest names I bear,
And bearing, it disgrace.
In youth I was a mother's joy,
In later years a father's pride;
But let not them my tongue employ—
They both, three years since, died:
Ay—died to think that seed of theirs
Had generated worse than tares:
Died with a broken heart, what time
I fled from justice for my crime.

“No more of parentage or name—
That crime is pressing on my tongue,
And burns my heart as with a flame:
I would it might not thence be wrung,
The dark recital—and that I
Might not relate the deed of hell;
But no!—I feel I can not die,
Until the tale I tell!
Oh God! thy scourge is on me now—
I kiss the rod, and humbly bow.

“Well—there was one with chiseled lip,
And forehead like a fresh snow-flake;
So lightly formed, she seemed to trip
Like fairy on a sleeping lake.
Her tresses shone as fair and bright,
—Her tresses of the ebon die—
As do the waving folds of night,
When, glowing in the rich moonlight,
They curl about the sky.
And then her eyes—large, dark, and mild—
The innocence of a very child
Was theirs; and theirs the piercing glance,
More fatal than the Parthian lance—
Because the breast was willing laid
Bare to the archery of the maid.

“And she had mind—as some have not—
And she had feelings, some would scorn:
They deem that thought would be a blot
On such a brow—a cloud at morn.
More beautiful but few there be,
And fewer still with hearts like hers:
No sin to such to bend the knee,
And become worshipers.
“How well, with her rich, ductile heart,
Might woman act a nobler part;
If she would flee the trifling toys
That mar, in sooth, not make her joys;
If half the care on them she flings
Away, were giv'n to worthier things;
If half that care were but bestow'd
To cultivate the gifts of God:
Then were our worship rightly hers—
Then were men oft'ner worshipers.

“Such—such was Agnes!—Such the one
Who 'neath my fiendish purpose fell.
Oh God! I would this life were done!
Cold—cold!—but I must thus live on,
Till the dark tale I tell!

“Well—she was happy. Love had thrown
His silken chains about two hearts;
And there was one she called her own,
Who for a few brief months had gone
To visit other parts.
I saw them part—and look above—
Each at the fair and blessed sky:
I saw them part—I knew their love—
I knew their vows were writ on high:
And yet I strove to plant a dart
Of anguish in her happy heart;
To make her light of gladness dim;
And next, to win her love from him.
And if that love should be denied,
My bosom's hell—my lust—my pride—
Avenged, although my victim died,
This must be, and they gratified!
I thought not then of penance hour—
I dreamed not then of pangs like these;
I only knew, she had the power
My burning breast to ease:
And if her love I could not win,
I would not pause at deadlier sin!

“We were together—side by side—
Nine furlongs from her home away:
It was a walk she loved—for they,
Poor Agnes and her bosom's pride,
Oft wandered here at day's decline,
Her arm in his, as now in mine.
And every nook, and every stone,
And every simple, shrub, and tree,
Each star that through the branches shone,
Each rock with lichen overgrown,
Each moss-clad root and grassy knoll,
—Rested upon in many a stroll—
Each thicket for the native thrush,
Each woodbine, flower, and alder-bush,
Familiar seemed to be,
As if within that roadside wood,
A guardian forest nymph, she stood
To tell to passing travelers
The' elysium of a home like hers,
In hope some beauteous youth to meet
Willing to share her cool retreat.

“How, round each small and trifling thing
We see when with our heart's devoted,
Love's magnifying pow'rs will fling
A halo all before unnoted!
And memory will often dwell
Upon them, not forgetting any;
And, like poor Agnes, something tell
Of every one, though they be many.

“We were together:—We had tarried
So oft by some enchanting spot,
To her familiar, and which carried
Her thoughts away—where mine were not—
To one whose noble heart had won her,
Though wealthier ones were doting on her—
That, ere she knew, the bright, chaste moon,
—Not as of old, when Time was young,
She roamed the woods, in sandal-shoon,
With bow in hand, and quiver strung,
But 'mong the stars, and broad and round,
The moon of man's degenerate race,—
Its way had through an opening found,
And shone full in her face!
She started then—and looking up,
Turned on me her delicious eyes;
And I, poor fool! I dared to hope,
And met that look with sighs.

“One moment passed—and I had pour'd
My poison in her scorning ear:
She saw my baseness, and abhorr'd,
And would no farther-hear.
I seized her hand—and at her feet
With frenzied fervor press'd my suit:
She spurned me, for my base deceit—
She spurned me, and was mute.
Then quickly turned to flee away—
But, frenzied by her ripened charms,
I madly seized her—and she lay
Encircled in these arms;
But, struggling from their hot embrace,
Eluded then the foul disgrace;
And silent stood:—But on her brow,
—The recollection chills me now—
And in her large, dark, glorious eye,
—Such, now meseems, might wrong defy—
And burning on her crimson cheek,
—Spell-bound, I could nor move nor speak—
And wreathing round her curling lip,
—Yet pale from guilt's lascivious sip—
There was a look—Pray God that ne'er
Again may woman's features wear
Such look, nor man be doomed to bear!—
There was a look—'Twas not of woe—
Though black, still blacker did it grow—
'Twas not of guilt—'twas not of fear—
Nor softened by one single tear!
—'Twas partly ice, and partly flame,
Partly expression without name—
An angel changed to demon-state—
But more than each, than all, 'twas hate—
Dark, deep, unmitigable hate!
And withering on my heart it fell—
Burning and freezing both—as well
The ice of earth as fire of hell.

“And there she stood—unshrinking—grand—
A being of a moment's birth!
The stars were bright—the air was bland—
A silvery glory robed the earth.
And silence, deep as that which dwells
In hermit caves, and sainted cells,—
Or deeper still—like that which reigns
In chambers where the hand of Death
Is icing the last stirring veins
The dying body still retains—
And the suppressed and struggling breath
Of those who stand around the bed,
With swollen eye, and drooping head,
Alone is heard:—Such silence dwelt
Around us, in that lonely wood;
Where, powerless still, on earth I knelt,
And where, all-withering still, she stood.
Her bounding heart beat audibly—
And I her swelling breast could see,
—Which violence had opened bare—
Heaving her kindly-veiling hair.
And then—Oh God! I know not how,
Such madness fired this aching brow—
But soon I felt her bosom's swell,
And 'neath my brutal force she fell!

“You shudder, father!—closer draw—
There lived who would avenge her fall—
I am not done—I feared the law—
Cold!—shivering!—but I must tell all:
I feared to leave her thus—I knew
My crime would call the vengeance forth
Of one who would his hand imbrue
In blood, in spite of law—and who
Would hunt me through the earth.
Still, father! still, to fly I tried!
She shuddered!—and a fearful moan,
—A moan to madness near allied—
Escaped her, as the consciousness
Of what she was, began to press
Upon her now bewildered brain:
A moment—all was still again.
A second time I would have flown;
But fear of vengeance stayed my flight,
And swelled the horrors of that night.
I paused—She turned, and tried to rise—
Then fixed on mine her haggard eyes.
The moon full on her features shone.
I groaned, in very agony,
As dwelt those altered looks on me.
So much of woe I ne'er had seen;
And hope man's eye may never trace
Such agony, as mine saw then,
In that wild, haggard face.
Such sense of guilt I ne'er had felt,
And pray that man may never feel,
As when above that form I knelt,
And raised the pointed steel.
I plunged it, father!—and, Oh Heaven!
Can crime like this be e'er forgiven!
I plunged the weapon—And the scream
She gave, as gushed the purple stream,
Rang on my quick and aching ear
As if a curse from God it were.
And on my knee, by that pale form,
Smeared with the heart's blood gushing warm,
I cannot tell how long I knelt,
Nor half the agony I felt;
But I would not live o'er again
That moment or that hour of pain,
For all the bliss that earth can give:
I seemed to be, but not to live.
The damn'd, methinks, on hell's dread shore,
Can neither bear nor suffer more.

“And that loud, piercing shriek!—it seem'd
As though a hundred victims scream'd,
Unceasingly, that scream of death:
It came from every rock and dell;
From every waving tree-top fell;
And with my bosom's every swell,
And every new-drawn breath.
And since, though I have wandered far,
That wild face looks from every star,
And every full-orbed moon;
And all night long, that fearful scream
Still haunts me in some horrid dream:
And this has made me what I seem—
Old and gray-haired too soon.

“Three years, of such deep agony
Of soul and body, I have pass'd;
And they have seemed as ten times three—
Nay, look not thus aghast!
I know, it is a hollow sound
That issues from my breast's profound,
Sepulchral, cold abyss;
I know, it is as if the dead
Were speaking from the charnel-bed—
For all of life but speech has fled,
And death-tones are in this!
I know 'tis frightful, holy one—
But till the tale of guilt be done,
I cannot cease to speak.
Draw nearer—I am wondrous cold—
Methinks I feel the shroud enfold
My limbs, and hear the cloddy mold
Upon my coffin break.
There—father!—But I cannot feel
Thy touch! Oh God!—Now for my weal
A prayer—a silent one;
And I will give thee all that yet
Remains, of this exacted debt—
And then, I pray life's sun may set,
For all its heat is gone!

“That hour's or moment's anguish o'er,
—Anguish unfelt, unthought, before—
Trembling, above that corpse I stood,
But fearful more of man than God.
And that it might be thought the charms
I thus had snatched from worthier arms,
Had mine preferred, and flown with me,
And gone to parts unknown with me,—
That human search might be in vain,
And that they might not know her slain,—
I wound her hair, a shining band,
Round this nefarious, blood-stained hand,
And two long miles the beauteous corse
Thus dragged away, by demon force,
To where a stream ran deep and dark,
—A towering ledge of rock below—
Too small and swift for freighted barque,
And where man's foot might never go;—
And that, if found, it might be hard
The murdered one to recognize,
I every lovely feature marr'd,
And hacked and gashed her eyes:
Then pitched the body from that rocky height—
And, demon as I was, my senses sank in night.

“Suffice it—I recovered soon,
And from the scene of horror fled;
And ever since, that witness moon
Has shone upon this guilty head,
Which has nor asked nor wished for rest,
Here, in the dark woods of the West.
And such a life as mine has been!
And oh! in solitude to bear it!
Pray God, that ne'er again for sin
May man such years of anguish merit.
Before I reached these dark retreats,
I learnt my crime was fully known;
And heard, disguised in crowded streets,
Deep curses on my head show'rd down.

“A farmer's ear had caught the shriek,
That night, when the fair victim bled:
His dog, next morning, found the streak
Of blood, which to the victim led.
The farmer saw the mangled form,
Far down the steep, the stream beside;
His foot was sure—his heart was warm—
He soon was by the leaping tide,
Though dangerous was the craggy pass:
For legal form he did not linger—
But raised a white hand from the grass,
And found a ring upon one finger,
On which her name was graven full!
So works the Great Inscrutable.
Sooner or later, crime shall find
There is One Eye that's never blind.’