And twice it was my hap to see
Examples of that agony,

Which for a season can o'erstrain
And wreck the structure of the brain.
He had the awful power to know
The approaching mental overthrow,
And while his mind had courage yet
To struggle with the dreadful fit,
The victim writhed against its throes,
Like wretch beneath a murderer's blows.
This malady, I well could mark,
Sprung from some direful cause and dark
But still he kept its source concealed,
Till arming for the civil field;
Then in my charge he bade me hold
A treasure huge of gems and gold,
With this disjointed dismal scroll,
That tells the secret of his soul,
In such wild words as oft betray
A mind by anguish forced astray."

XIX

Mortham's Pistory.

"Matilda! thou hast seen me start,
As if a dagger thrilled my heart,
When it has happed some casual phrase
Waked memory of my former days.
Believe that few can backward cast

Their thoughts with pleasure on the past;
But I!-my youth was rash and vain,
And blood and rage my manhood stain,
And my grey hairs must now descend
To my cold grave without a friend!
Even thou, Matilda, wilt disown
Thy kinsman, when his guilt is known.
And must I lift the bloody veil,
That hides my dark and fatal tale!
I must-I will-Pale phantom, cease
Leave me one little hour in peace!
Thus haunted, think'st thou I have skill,
Thine own commission to fulfil?

Or, while thou point'st with gesture fierce,
Thy blighted clieek, thy bloody hearse,
How can I paint thee as thou wert,
So fair in face, so warm in heart!-

XX

"Yes, she was fair!-Matilda, thou
Hast a soft sadness on thy brow;
But hers was like the sunny glow
That laughs on earth and all below!
We wedded secret-there was need-
Differing in country and in creed;

And when to Mortham's tower she came,
We mentioned not her race and name,
Until thy sire, who fought afar,

Should turn him home from foreign war,
On whose kind influence we relied
To soothe her father's ire and pride.
Few months we lived retired, unknown,
To all but one dear friend alone,
One darling friend-I spare his shame,
I will not write the villain's name!
My trespasses I might forget,
And sue in vengeance for the debt
Due by a brother worm to me,
Ungrateful to God's clemency,
That spared me penitential time,
Nor cut me off amid my crime.-

XXI

A kindly smile to all she lent,
But on her husband's friend 'twas bent
So kind, that from its harmless glee,
The wretch misconstrued villany.
Repulsed in his presumptuous love,
A vengeful snare the traitor wove.
Alone we sat-the flask had flowed,
My blood with heat unwonted glowed,
When through the alleyed walk we spied
With hurried step my Edith glide,
Cowering beneath the verdant screen,
As one unwilling to be seen.

Words cannot paint the fiendish smile,
That curled the traitor's cheek the while!
Fiercely I questioned of the cause;
He made a cold and artful pause,

Then prayed it might not chafe my mood-
There was a gallant in the wood !'-
We had been shooting at the deer;-
My cross-bow (evil chance!) was near:
That ready weapon of my wrath
I caught, and, hasting up the path,
In the yew grove my wife I found,

A stranger's arms her neck had bound!

I marked his heart-the bow I drew

I loosed the shaft-'twas more than true!

I found my Edith's dying charms

Locked in her murdered brother's arms! He came in secret to inquire

Her state, and reconcile her sire.

XXII

"All fled my rage-the villain first,
Whose craft my jealousy had nursed;
He sought in far and foreign clime
To 'scape the vengeance of his crime.

The manner of the slaughter done
Was known to few, my guilt to none;
Some tale my faithful steward framed-
I know not what-of shaft mis-aimed;
And even from those the act who knew,
He hid the hand from which it flew.i
Untouched by human laws I stood,
But GOD had heard the cry of blood'
There is a blank upon my mind,
A fearful vision ill-defined,
Of raving till my flesh was torn,
Of dungeon-bolts and fetters worn-
And when I waked to woe more mild,
And questioned of my infant child-
(Have I not written, that she bare
A boy, like summer morning fair?)
With looks confused my menials tell,
That armèd men in Mortham dell
Beset the nurse's evening way,
And bore her, with her charge, away.
My faithless friend, and none but he,
Could profit by this villany;

Him, then, I sought, with purpose dread
Of treble vengeance on his head!

He 'scaped me-but my vosom's wound
Some faint relief from wandering found;
And over distant land and sea,

I bore my load of misery.

XXIII

""Twas then that fate my footsteps led,
Among a daring crew and dread,
With whom full oft my hated life
I ventured in such desperate strife,
That even my fierce associates saw
My frantic deeds with doubt and awe.
Much then I learned, and much can show,
Of human guilt and human woe,

Yet ne'er have, in my wanderings, known

A wretch, whose sorrows matched my own!-
It chanced, that after battle fray,

Upon the bloody field we lay;
The yellow moon her lustre shed
Upon the wounded and the dead,

While, sense in toil and wassail drowned,
My ruffian comrades slept around.
There came a voice-its silver tone
Was soft, Matilda, as thine own-

First edition:

"And even from those the act who knew,
He hid the hand the dart that threw."