Without hope to repel, or to ward off the blow!—
—Enough!—let's pass over as fast as we can
The fate of that grey, that unhappy old man!
But fancy poor Hugh
Aghast at the view,
Powerless alike to speak or to do!
In vain doth he try
To open the eye
That is shut, or close that which is clapt to the chink,
Though he'd give all the world to be able to wink!—
No!—for all that this world can give or refuse,
I would not be now in that little boy's shoes,
Or indeed any garment at all that is Hugh's!
—'Tis lucky for him that the chink in the wall
He has peep'd through so long, is so narrow and small!
Wailing voices, sounds of woe
Such as follow departing friends,
That fatal night round Tappington go,
Its long-drawn roofs and its gable ends:
Ethereal Spirits, gentle and good,
Aye weep and lament o'er the deed of blood.
•••••••••
'Tis early dawn—the morn is grey,
And the clouds and the tempest have pass'd away,
And all things betoken a very fine day;
But, while the lark her carol is singing,
Shrieks and screams are through Tappington ringing!
Upstarting all,
Great and small.
Each one who's found within Tappington Hall,
Gentle and Simple, Squire and Groo,
All seek at once that old Gentleman's room;
And there, on the floor,
Drench'd in its gore,
A ghastly corpse lies exposed to the view,
Carotid and jugular both cut through!
And there, by its side,
'Mid the crimson tide,
Kneels a little Foot-page of tenderest years;
Adown his pale cheek the fast-falling tears
Are coursing each other round and big,
And he's staunching the blood with a full-bottom'd wig!
Alas! and alack for his staunching!—'tis plain,
As anatomists tell us, that never again
Shall life revisit the foully slain,
When once they've been cut through the jugular vein.
•••••••••
