I have long determined that I would, at some period or other, (as the only possible atonement now in my power) divulge to the public the dreadful secret contained in the following confession—
Years of overwhelming grief and unmitigated misery have entirely failed in at all assuaging the bitter regrets of this crime-tortured bosom.
Those who have been much in my society, cannot have failed to notice the frequent fits of melancholy abstraction to which I am subject. The following painful disclosure will at once serve to elucidate the retributive nature of those visitations—
And oh, my very soul sickens when I think how many, whom I have been proud to consider as my friends, will shudder, when they ascertain that this hand, which they (in the kindness of their hearts) have so warmly pressed, has been stained with; but I will not anticipate!
The Confession.
It was a damp, cold, foggy, drizzly night,
The moon half gave, and half witheld her light,
The hour approaching twelve, the month November:
And tho' 'tis years a-gone, I still remember
The fearful doings of that night, as well
As tho' 'twere yesterday on which it fell.
Its bare remembrance makes my blood run cold,
But conscience dictates, and it shall be told!
Oh! would in mercy this poor brain were freed
From recollections of that horrid deed!
