Nugae Canorae :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ah! wherefore that gibbet which dismally rocks,
As the gale of the hill moans profound;
While the fair spreading valley, now whitened with flocks,
Now with tufted slopes varied, and villages, mocks
The cold heathy mountains around?

There suffered poor Harry, the generous and bold!
The hamlet his virtues well knew;
His the free grace of youth; his eye always told
The feelings of nature; his looks never cold,
When they promis'd the most were most true.

And he loved: nor his loyal affection to bless
The maiden did ever delay:
His tongue's mellow music would sweetly express,
And his eyes melting gaze, and a timid caress,
That his thrilled heart was rapturously gay.

And often the sweets of a virtuous embrace,
If at evening he anxiously hied,
All faint from the copse, would his weariness chase,
In a moment enlighten his moist harass'd face
With a smile of inspirited pride.

Then around the trim hearth he the eve would beguile,
Reclined on the breast of his maid;
Having wooed her to sing, he would watch all the while,
How in her soft lip's inexpressible smile,
Love's witcheries furtively played.

And when the green mead and the full-foliaged spray
Refresh the glad eye, they would roam;
And, twining their arms, would exultingly say,
That, ere the leaves fell, at the close of the day,
They, wedded, should hie to one home.

Ah, bootless the thought! The prospect, though sweet,
Was frail as the tints of the sky,
When the day's radiance fades, and the traveller to cheat,
A gleam riseth beauteous, most vivid and fleet,
For the night-storm is brooding on high.

'Twas summer;—and sultry and parching noontide,
The woodman, with labour oppressed,
The ragings of thirst would relieve;—by the side
Of his path, on a sign, he unluckily spied
All the trophies of Bacchus confessed.

Might ever his breast's irresistible throe
To the o'ertakings of pleasure invite;
He quaffs, till with passion his cheeks deeply glow,
Life's full tides through his veins more tumultuously flow;—
His heart shaped untasted delight!

And now he must go to the green coppice shade;
While o'ercharged with delirious fire,
And passionate impulse, he quickly surveyed
Where a female half-clad was alluringly laid;
And he seized her with maddened desire.

'Twas a poor wandering idiot, diffused in the sun,
Who was basking, that there met his eye:
His good angel forsook him!—Confounded, undone,
He for ever the cause of his ruin would shun,
And wished at that moment to die.

No more on his Mary the wretched youth thought,
Or thinking, he started convulsed!
He would give at that hour the whole world to have bought
The bliss which her image had formerly brought,
Ere conscience that image repulsed.

And though he still loved, yet his love mix'd with shame,
Was bitter as once it was sweet,
When the innocent maiden was near him, the flame
Of tremulous agony shot through his frame,
Nor her look dared he ever to meet.

Now Harry's a father. The crazed outcast sent
A poor babe to his cot: then he cried,
“My arm is my all; will not Justice relent?
“And will nothing but twenty gold pieces prevent
“The idiot from being my bride?”

Distracted at leaving the maid of his love,
And loathing the outcast to wed;—
All agonized;—hopeless;—too poor to remove
The evils that threaten, no longer he strove,
But to prison was cruelly led.

And long he persisted; but, stiffened with cold,
And consumed both by hunger and thirst,—
He at last to his tyrants his happiness sold,
The idiot did wed, and consented to fold
To his heart, what it secretly cursed.

And then did he think, till 'twas madness to think,
On the raptures his Mary had given;
And oft at the sight his poor senses would sink,
When this ungifted wretch made him keenlier shrink
From the raptures of forfeited heaven.

'Twas a cold wintry season, the night it was dark,
And long was the eve;—on his cheek,
While his eye brooded vacantly o'er the pale spark,
As ít died on the hearth, the beholder might mark
Those workings that bid the heart break.

He thought on the maid; on the choice of his youth;
He thought on the days that were flown;
He painted with feelings more vivid than truth
The raptures that wonted his bosom to sooth,
When he counted that Maiden his own.

And he dwelt on her look, on her soft melting gaze,
On the roll of her languishing eye;
And he felt all the throbs of her willing embrace,
And recalled the warm touch of her soft melting face,
And heard the inarticulate sigh.

Then he looked on his mate, and she seem'd to his view
A fiend that tormented his soul!
He lifted his hand; and, oh God! ere he knew
The extent of his crime, the poor victim he slew,
'Twas an impulse he might not control!

For their prey now the blood-hunters anxiously wait,
The unfortunate woodman is bound!
Once more he beholds the heavy hinged gate
Of the prison; the fetters with torturing weight
Again bend him down to the ground.

There agonized, hopeless, remorseful, he lies,
With passions diseasedly rife;—
Disarmed of a conscience that comfort supplies,
With the frenzies of madness he impiously tries
To exhaust the vexed remnants of life.

He is sentenc'd to die; nor to him was the doom
With regret or reluctancy fraught;—
His misery mocks all the threats of the tomb,
And he earnestly prays that the moment may come,
The sabbath of agonized thought.

The day is appointed; slow moves on the throng,
That would glut their foul gaze with his woes;
It trampleth the vale, then windeth along
That desolate hill, whose wild thickets among
A gibbet all fearfully rose.

The scaffold he mounts; the moment is near,
When, echoing far through the crowd,
A shriek of wild agony thrills on his ear,
Oh God!—a poor maniac!—his Mary is here—
She rushes along screaming loud.—

Then death it was horror;—the past was forgot—
From her visage he fearfully shrunk:—
One embrace she implor'd, then quick to the spot
The fear-winged Mary distractedly shot,
On the breast of her lover she sunk.

She was senseless; her pale cheek was worn to the bone,
To the breeze floated wildly her hair;
And he glued to his breast, with a horrible groan,
The love of his youth; and his eyes fixed as stone,
At that moment did deathfully glare.

The pang it is passed;—for the minions of law
Asunder these wretched ones tore;
The cord round his neck they inhumanly draw,
Mary's eyes, tho' half clos'd, the dire spectacle saw,
Nor her senses could mortal restore.