Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind-- The snow and the sky so bright--he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet--for hark! Nay--you can hear it yourself--it is coming--shaking the walls-- Willy--the moon's in a cloud--Good night. I am going. He calls.
'T was in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school; There were some that ran, and some that leapt Like troutlets in a pool.
Away they sped with gamesome minds And souls untouched by sin; To a level mead they came, and there They drave the wickets in: Pleasantly shone the setting sun Over the town of Lynn.
Like sportive deer they coursed about, And shouted as they ran. Turning to mirth all things of earth As only boyhood can; But the usher sat remote from all, A melancholy man!
His hat was off, his vest apart, To catch heaven's blessèd breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease; So he leaned his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees.
Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside,-- For the peace of his soul he read that book In the golden eventide; Much study had made him very lean, And pale, and leaden-eyed.
At last he shut the ponderous tome; With a fast and fervent grasp He strained the dusky covers close, And fixed the brazen hasp: "O God! could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp!"
Then leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took,-- Now up the mead, then down the mead, And past a shady nook,-- And, lo! he saw a little boy That pored upon a book.
"My gentle lad, what is 't you read,-- Romance or fairy fable? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable?" The young boy gave an upward glance,-- "It is 'The Death of Abel.'"
The usher took six hasty strides, As smit with sudden pain,-- Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again; And down he sat beside the lad, And talked with him of Cain;
And, long since then, of bloody men, Whose deeds tradition saves; And lonely folk cut off unseen, And hid in sudden graves; And horrid stabs, in groves forlorn; And murders done in caves;