He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.
Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath:
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;
And with a hushing sound comprest,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one-what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill-so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And
every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek—and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past,
In mercy wish'd it were the last.
Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
In quicken'd brokenness that came,
In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame,
None knew-and none can ever know:
But whatsoe'er its end below,
Her life began and closed in woe! (3)
And Azo found another bride,
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who wither'd in the
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.
He was past all mirth or woe:
Nothing more remain❜d below
But sleepless nights and heavy days,
A mind all dead to scorn or praise,
A heart which shunn'd itself-and yet
That would not yield-nor could forget,
Which when it least appear'd to melt,
Intently thought-intensely felt:
The deepest ice which ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close-
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows-and cannot cease to flow.
Still was his seal'd-up bosom haunted
By thoughts which Nature hath implanted;
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish;
When, struggling as they rise to start,
We check those waters of the heart,
They are not dried-those tears unshed
But flow back to the fountain head,
And resting in their spring more pure,
For ever in its depth endure,
Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd,
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd.
With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft ;
Without the power to fill again
The desert gap which made his pain;
Without the hope to meet them where
United souls shall gladness share,
With all the consciousness that he
Had only pass'd a just decree;
That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still.
The tainted branches of the tree,
If lopp'd with care, a strength may give,
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