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His brotherhood with hell had fired his eye
With something of demoniac dignity—
Like Lucifer's gaunt scowl, as he looks down
Upon a world that sin hath stamped his own,
And sees in man, a thing so fondly wooing
The deadliest causes of his own undoing,

As scarce can bribe impatience to delay

To stoop his pinions on so mean a prey.

""Tis well!" he cried; "mine eye hath pierced the gloom,

Hath glanced upon the secrets of the tomb :

I've seen-what thou may'st see, with more of wonder,

When death shall snap the silver thread asunder;

I've seen-no matter what-I feel my fate,

Lorn as it is, and deeply desolate,

More happy now: 'twere harder far to dwell

With these on earth, than nobler fiends in hell!"

"And deem'st thou," I replied, "whate'er you be,

There's none to feel, to weep, to pray for thee?

I came to see thee die, but not to share

Thy foes' wild joy, or feast on thy despair;

F F

Their zeal for God may hiss, and hoot, and ban--

Mine half forgets the murderer in the man.
Too blest to point thee One whose latest sigh

Burst heaven's bright portals to the felon's eye;
I saw with hope thy softened spirit bow,
And less had pitied than I pity now.

And, know, some minds are far too keen to stay
At the frail fence that warns the crowd away;
Slight were the task for mine its way to win
To thy soul's secret council-room within,
And read in burning brow and flashing eye
The last alternative of misery,-

The desperate effort to relieve a heart

That else had broken."-I beheld him start,

And a low sigh half-struggled from his breast-
He seized my hand, and firmly, warmly pressed.
"God bless you, sir! for you the murderer's prayer
May ask, what for himself it doth not dare!"
He raised his arm towards his face; the chain
Resisted, and it sunk-he sigh'd ""Tis vain!

And I have done with shame!" It was a tear
Had gathered in that savage eye, and clear,
And large, and warm as childhood's ;-as it fell,
My own poured forth a mute and sad farewell.

I tottered from him to a small low room
That opened on the scaffold;-all was gloom ;-

I flung me down; my mind was then o'erwrought
To an intensity that is not thought;

And my breast laboured with a deep oppression,

That those who know must feel-it lacks expression. A shock-a jar aroused me—a dead sound

Of falling weight, checked ere it touched the ground!
I raised my eyes-('tis all in vain to guess

At motives in that moment's dizziness ;)
They seemed, in spite of me, perforce to seek
What most they feared to find, as if to wreak
Torture upon themselves;-ay, there it hung,

That ghastly form, and slowly turned and swung!
'Twas he who last spoke,-wept with me; no strife,
No writhe of limb or muscle told of life,

Save one long heave, one gathering, deep'ning swell,
That sunk as slowly; then the shoulders fell-
The limbs relaxed-the guilty soul had burst
Its bonds, and gone to hear and prove the worst.
God only knows the rest! 'Tis not for me

To judge what it hath been, or say what it may be.

1837.

SUNDAY SCHOOL HYMN.

WHO shall ascend to the holy place,

And stand on the holy hill?

Who shall the boundless realms of space

With shouts of rapture thrill?

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!

The servants of the Lord are they,

The pure in heart and hand,

For whom the eternal bars give way,

The eternal gates expand!

Hallelujah! &c.

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