The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ezra White unroofs the Cottage of Hannah Wray, the Widow of an imputed Poacher—He detects her and her Daughter in the Act of re-roofing their Cottage—He assaults the Mother, and is killed by the Daughter—Imprisonment, Trial, and Death of Hannah Wray.

I.

Kind souls! ye jail the peasant, while ye plough
The wild that loved to laugh around his home.
Where the broad common fed his father's cow,
And where himself, a fearless boy, could roam
Unquestion'd, lo! the infant rivers foam
No longer, through a paradise of fern!
Look how, like burden'd slaves, they steal through fields
That sullenly obey your mandate stern!
And how the tortured waste, reluctant, yields
Corn bought with souls, while soulless avarice builds
His palace, rafter'd with iniquity!

II.

Storm-smitten rock! and thou, time-wrinkled tree!
Where is the sun-loved cottage that of old
Ye screen'd from envious winds? And where is he

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Who dwelt in that lone cottage of the wold?
Far from the mountain bee he slumbers cold.
Thou, Enoch Wray, shalt hear the son no more
Who kill'd the harmless hare that ate his kale:
Atrocious crime! for which he sternly bore
Slow pain and wasting fever, in a jail.
He perish'd there. Then died his widow pale,
Who sleeps unsepulchred, and yet sleeps well.
But silly Jane, their child, still wanders here,
Seeking her mother on the stormy fell.
While freezes as it flows the scalding tear,
She lifts her left hand to her heart in fear,
And waves a fan of bracken in the right,
Forbidding evil sprites to melt the snow
That veils the fields once till'd by Ezra White.
Hark! how she grinds her teeth, and mutters low,
With black lips quivering — “God, let nothing grow!”
For Ezra White unroof'd their humble home,
And thrust them forth, and mock'd the mother's woe,
Bidding her, with her brat, a beggar roam,
Or hire a hearth of him who feeds the crow,
Or to the Workhouse, hope-abandon'd, go.
“I to the Workhouse?—I?” the widow cried,
And from her shoulders ript the kerchief thin,
Displaying to the tyrant, elder-eyed,
A breast that might have tempted saints to sin,
While all th' impassion'd woman raged within—

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“I to the Workhouse?” and her forehead burn'd,
And swell'd the tortured heart that would not break;
And her neck thicken'd, and her visage turn'd
Black, and she gasped, long impotent to speak:
“I!—to the Workhouse? Rather will I seek
The welcome grave. But hope not thou to thrive!
Though, feeding on old crimes, and plotting new,
Thou yet may'st crawl, the meanest thing alive;
Here and hereafter thou shalt have thy due,
And this vile deed with snakes shall whip thee, Jew!
Am I thy tenant?—did I bid thee pay
The Squire my rent?—and are three pounds eleven?
Thou tyrant!—yet shall come thine evil day;
Yet shalt thou find there is a God in heav'n,
Although thy two fat farms have swallow'd seven.
God! see this glutton! how he crams and grasps,
Like death, for more—a beast of pray'r and prey.
Would all their maws were stuff'd with stings of wasps!
When shall I see them, on the bare highway
Toil, like their betters, for a groat a-day?
God! let him sow in vain! let nothing grow!
Be straw his harvest, grainless chaff his food!
To-morrow he will marry wealth and woe;
(Ah, Lucy Hargrove is for him too good!)
But may a mother's curse be on his blood!
May he die childless!” And she turn'd, and bent,
In passionate fondness, o'er her idiot child,
Weeping; then took her hand in haste, and went,

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She cared not whither, uttering curses wild;
But paused, and groan'd, while Jane look'd up and smiled,
When Ezra's parting sneer shot through her brain.

III.

Morn rose, all splendid, o'er the frosty plain,
And Lucy Hargrove married Ezra White.
But Ezra strove to cheer his bride in vain;
Long stay'd the day, and linger'd long the night;
For Hannah's curse was on them like a blight.
The homeless widow seem'd to haunt their bed—
The idiot child to thunder at the door.
“They fire the stacks,” he growl'd; “I hear their tread.”
“O give them back their cottage on the moor;
How canst thou prosper if thou rob the poor?”
Cold lay the moonbeam on the glittering rock,
When Ezra gruffly left his troubled bride;
His early steps alarm'd the wondering cock;
And the fox saw him on the dim hill side,
Plodding through molten snow, with cautious stride
And horrid instinct, hither. But, behold!
Here laboured Hannah Wray, and silly Jane,
Fearless of blinding sleet, and blue with cold,
Busily roofing their sad cot again.
Flash'd Ezra's eyes, and rage fired every vein,

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As when men wound a tiger. On he sprung,
And grasp'd the struggling widow by the throat,
Till white her eyes upturn'd, and forth her tongue
Protruded through retracting lips that caught
Sad hues from coming death, while anguish wrought
Terrific changes on her pensive cheek.
But Jane took up a stone, and smote his brow.
He fell, but held his prey; with strangled shriek,
He tried to heave his bulk, relaxing slow
His murderous gripe, and backward sank; then low
Dropp'd his large chin, and grim he gaped in death!
But long lay Hannah senseless—happy she,
If, senseless, she had yielded up her breath.
But her eyes closed, then open'd—what to see?
She gazed on Ezra's corpse in agony;
Then on her daughter; and then gush'd her tears.
The horrid future on her spirit gleam'd;
She trembled with unutterable fears;
And, while the wan dawn o'er the mountains beam'd,
She clasp'd her daughter to her breast and scream'd—
“No, I can die! they shall not hang my child!”
Then came the hue and cry; the parting wild
Of sunder'd bosoms, ne'er again to meet;
The dungeon'd weeks; and hope, that never smiled.
Yet once, in slumber, came a vision sweet,
Which bore her spirit to the dear retreat

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Where still, she thought, her husband dwelt, and Jane
Still press'd the nipple, pillow'd on her breast;
The grave had lost its prey; the past its pain;
The dead had never died! But thoughts so bless'd
Could not endure. A darker dream oppress'd
The dosing captive. Not to see her die,
But dead, she thought, her child arrived, at last;
She saw herself a corpse; saw Jane draw nigh
Shrieking, to gaze upon that corpse, aghast;
And, shrieking, waked, with temples throbbing fast!
Then came the trial brief; the evidence
So clear, so false, so fatal; the sad eyes,
All gazing on convicted innocence,
But not in pity! her convulsive sighs,
Her sudden tears; the dread solemnities
Of sentence on the wrong'd and guiltless!—Oh,
Was there no pleader, by the laws allowed,
To aid the sufferer in her hour of woe?
No—not a voice in all that awe-struck crowd
Was raised for her whom fate had stunn'd and bow'd;
For her, who then must plead, or ne'er again.
Dreadful, O Death, are all thy paths of pain!
And many a wretch hath felt, but who shall tell
What pangs unnamed the convict must sustain,
Ere frailty, pale as snow, bids hope farewell,
And, for the living, tolls the passing bell?

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Still, in her desolation, nightly she
Dream'd that the Lord had heard her earnest prayer;
Her child, she thought, poor Jane, was come to see
Her mother die, and beg a lock of hair,
Which she might kiss in tears and ever wear.
Dark roll'd the hours by cruel mercy given,
The waking hours of certainty and doom;
And, in her cell, she cried to earth and heav'n,
“O let my child sleep with me in the tomb!
Tomb! I shall have none!” And the echoing gloom
Mutter'd, even when she slept, her heavy sigh.

IV.

As if no heart had ever ached, no eye
Shed bitter tears, another morn arose,
All light and smiles; but, with the brightening sky,
Hannah awoke from dreams of death, to close
Her eyes in dreamless and profound repose.
But Jane came not! poor Jane was far away;
She, though oft told, knew not her mother's doom;
But much she wonder'd at her lengthen'd stay,
With saddening thoughts, and cheek that lost its bloom.
Hark! the bell tolls! and yet Jane is not come!
“But she, who murder'd pious Ezra White,
And trampled on his brains,” (so rumour lies,)
Ere minutes pass, must wrestle with the might

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That none can vanquish. Lo! ten thousand eyes
Are gazing on the prison where she sighs!
The streets are paved, the house-tops piled with heads,
The windows choak'd with faces, anxious all
To look on all that man most hates and dreads.
Now the hush deepens near the fetter'd wall;
Now a dropp'd feather might be heard to fall;
Now, by the scaffold, hearts throb quick and loud;
Now, in dire stillness, hark, faint murmurs rise!
And, lo! the murderess bends above the crowd,
Bursting, with desperate strength, the cord that ties
Her arms, and rolling on all sides her eyes!
Chill'd, in a moment, chill'd is every heart.
“Where is my child?” she sobs; “My child!” she shrieks;
“O let me see my child, ere I depart!”
And long, for her who is not here, she seeks;
Then, to the crowd, with hands uplifted, speaks:
“Ye come to see a murderess? I am none.
A stainless conscience is my rock and tower.
'Tis true my foe to his account is gone;
But not for all this world's vain pomp and power
Would I have shorten'd his bad life an hour.
I die his victim, and die reconciled.
Kind hearts! ye melt—but which of ye will bear
A dying mother's keepsake to her child?

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O for a kindred heart, my grief to share;
A kindred voice, to join my parting prayer!”
Lo! as she ended, on her bosom bent
A blind old pilgrim, who had left the throng
Weeping aloud, all pitied as he went!
She clasp'd him with a grasp convulsed and strong—
She kiss'd him fervently, and held him long.
“God bless thee, Enoch, for this last good deed!”
She sobb'd—and down her cheeks the tears gush'd free.
“But we must bear whatever is decreed.
Nay, father of my Joe, be firm, like me!
Hold up! be firm, as innocence should be!
Guiltless I go to join thy son in heaven.
Jane, too, is guiltless, though she kill'd our foe,
Who, when he died, had need to be forgiv'n.—
Bear to my child this tress; a month ago
'Twas raven black, and now 'tis white as snow.
Yes, Enoch, I am guiltless. Let them pare
My bones, and make a mockery of my frame;
They cannot stain my soul! and I can bear
What must be borne. Why, then, should my sad name,
Whenever utter'd, flush thy cheek with shame?
Poor Enoch! where thy murder'd son lies low,
I hoped to weep again; but hope deceives!
O might I rest with him!—no flower will blow
O'er me, no redbreast cover me with leaves!
This thought, despite my will, appals and grieves

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My conquering soul, ere it take wing and soar.
Should one or two remember me in love,
Say I died guiltless.—Though we meet no more
On earth, an angel waits for us above;
But thou shalt nurse awhile my orphan dove,
Far from the parent bird—when I am free!”

V.

And all is o'er—the shock, the agony,
The low-breathed moan of sympathetic woe.
But silly Jane, still wandering gloomily,
Wears on her breast the lessening lock of snow;
And still she mutters, “God! let nothing grow:
God! may a mother's curse be on their blood!”