"Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, And one with a heavy stone, One horrid gash with a hasty knife- Of the blood-avenging sprite; "I took the dreary body up, The death was so extreme. Throus for bity (My gentle boy, remember this Was nothing but a dream). intra a cam "Down went the corse with a hollow plunge And vanish'd in a pool; Anon I cleaned my bloody hands, And wash'd my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young "Oh heaven! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in evening hymn; Like a devil of the pit I seem'd 'Mid holy cherubim. "And peace went with them one and all, And each calm pillow spread; And drew my midnight curtains round, "All night I lay in agony, "One stern, tyrannic thought, that made Still urging me to go and see 66 Merrily rose the lark, and shook • But I never marked its morning flight, I never heard it sing : For I was stooping once again Under the horrid thing. "With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran― There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began! In a lonesome wood with heaps of leaves, I hid the murdered man! "And all that day I read in school, But my thought was otherwhere; And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, "Then down I cast me on my face, And first began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one That Earth refused to keep; Or land or sea, though he should be "So wills the fierce avenging sprite "Oh God, that horrid, horrid dream And my red right hand grows raging hot, "And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing that pursues my soul- and saw Huge drops upon his brow! That very night, while gentle sleep Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, And Eugene Aram walked between, BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. ALL at once Miss Morbid left off sugar. She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage, the full-bodied family coach dwindling into a chariot, next into a fly, and then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off artistically, like certain household economists, from white to whitey brown, brown, dark-brown, and so on, to none at all. She left it off, as one might leave off walking on the top of a house, or on a slide, or on a plank with a further end to it, that is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a moment's warning. She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lump. She dropped it, as Corporal Trim let fall his hat, dab. It vanished, as the French say, toot sweet. From the 30th of November, 1830, not an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid's own expression, ever "darkened her doors." The truth was she had been present the day before at an AntiSlavery Meeting; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist, who had drawn her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head. Thenceforth sugar, or as she called it "shugger," was no longer white, or brown, in her eyes, but red, blood-red-an abomination, to indulge in which would convert a professing Christian into a practical Cannibal. Accordingly, she made a vow, under the influence of moist eyes and refined feelings, that the sanguinary article should never more enter her lips or her house; and this pretty parody of the famous Berlin decree against our Colonial produce was rigidly enforced. However others might countenance the practice of the Slave Owners by consuming "shugger," she was resolved for her own part, that “ no suffering sable son of Africa should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea!" In the mean time, the cook and house-maid grumbled in concert |