64 LAYS OF HEPTONSTALL. 



" Father, no tear-flow of penitent weeper 

 Can wash out the foiihiess that blackens the deeper 

 'Tis indnlged in and loved, till it stifle and smotlier 

 What is purest in wife, what is holiest in mother. 



I had broken the vow of troth-oath, and he knew it ; 

 Oh ! the calm that he kept it was painful to view it ; 

 Yes, he knew it, and yet his pale face kept its fashion — 

 How that silence spoke more and cut deeper than passion ! 



And day after day he disdained to miu-mur 

 One word of betrayal. — Did pride hold him firmer, 

 Or affection ? — Aye kind was his face in its loving. 

 Frown never the tale of his agony proving. 



I remember that night, as I stood there uncertain. 

 Looking out at the great calm night through the curtain. 

 When the snowfall had blanched the pine forest's sable. 

 And the moonlight lay cold upon window and gable. 



I remember that night, as I stood there uncertain. 

 Looking in by the light that a-streamed through the curtain 

 At his still face up-looking in dreamlight so kindly, 

 "Which I gazed at with eyeballs that gazing gazed blindly. 



My hand it would tremble, my step it would stagger, 

 As I bent o'er his form with my grasp on the dagger ; 

 For I felt that his hps blanched in death were less kiUing 

 Than those lips, locked with secret, whose silence was chilling. 



I dared not to gaze, lest the deed should undo me. 



Lest the glazed eye shoidd haunt, and the death-look pursue me,, 



So I turned from his face, for my heart it was leaping 



At the deed I was doing — I stabbed him a-sleeping. 



AH in vain is confession, for me is no pardon, 

 There's a sin in my bosom the years do but harden ; 

 Can the Water of Life quench the hell of remorses, 

 Cool the fire in my veins that so scaldingly courses ? 



Art afraid of the story thy daughter rehearses ? 

 O Priest, do thy lips mutter blessing or curses ? 



