444 
THE STAKE. 
On he passed: his head was bare, 
And the sighing summer gale 
Lifted his dark shadowing hair 
From his forehead high and pale ; 
And about his temples play’d, 
As so often it had done 
When at vesper-time we stray’d, 
Watching down the western sun 
In the woodlands of our home, 
And heaven’s night-lamps, one by one, 
Lighting in its purple dome. 
On, in the deep joy of one, 
Who, this world’s dark night-watch ended, 
Joys to see the orient sun, 
By morn’s golden clouds attended. 
They who gazed with little heed 
Onty gladness there might read ; 
But to mine eye, used to trace 
Evéry line of that still face, 
In its aspect there lay hidden, 
Like a masquer come unbidden, 
The deep shadow of a dread, 
And a sorrowful foreboding, 
As if, far beneath it spread, 
Some sad memory lay corroding. 
And he moved with steady eye 
Fixed upon the distant sky ; 
As if from some haunting woe 
Its pained vision would retreat ; 
As if in the crowd below 
Were an eye he dared not meet. 
As the throng moved so moved I, 
And when they stopp’d suddenly 
I too stood, though why not knowing ; 
For I nothing saw but him, 
Where, above the dense mass shewing, 
Towering rose his figure high 
Between me and the far sky ; 
Till a burst of smoke rose dim, 
Black and massive, like a cloud, 
