6 And all that day I read in school,

But my thought was otherwhere ; As soon as the midday task was done,

In secret I was there : And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,

And still the corse was bare !

“ 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

Ten thousand fathoms deep.

“So wills the fierce avenging sprite,

Till blood for blood atones !
Ay, though he's buried in a cave,

And trodden down with stones,
And years have rotted off his flesh, -

The world shall see his bones !

“O God ! that horrid, horrid dream

Besets me now awake !
Again — again, with dizzy brain,

The human life I take;

And my red right hand grows raging hot,

Like Cranmer's at the stake.

“And still no peace for the restless clay

Will wave or mould allow ;'
The horrid thing pursues my soul, —

It stands before me now! ”
The fearful boy looked up, and saw

Huge drops upon his brow.

That very night, while gentle sleep

The urchin eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,

Through the cold and heavy mist ; And Eugene Aram walked between,

With gyves upon his wrist.

THE ELM-TREE:

A DREAM IN THE WOODS.

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees.” – As You Like It.

PART 1.
W WAS in a shady avenue,

Where lofty elms abound ;

And from a tree

There came to me A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmured overhead,

And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seemed to sigh,

Amid the boughs to moan ;
It muttered in the stem, and then

The roots took up the tone ;
As if beneath the dewy grass

The dead began to groan. No breeze there was to stir the leaves ;

No bolts that tempests launch,