If pity can allay thy woes
    Sad spirit they shall find repose—­
Thy friend, thy long-lov’d friend is near! 
He comes to pour the parting tear,
  He comes to catch the parting breath—­
Ah heaven! no melting look he wears,
His alter’d eye with vengeance glares;
Each frantic passion at his soul,
’Tis he has dash’d that venom’d bowl
    With agony, and death.

[A] Sir Thomas Overbury, poisoned in the Tower by Somerset.

VIII.

But whence arose that solemn call? 
  Yon bloody phantom waves his hand,
  And beckons me to deeper gloom—­
    Rest, troubled form!  I come—­
  Some unknown power my step impels
  To horror’s secret cells—­
    “For thee I raise this sable pall,
    “It shrouds a ghastly band: 
  “Stretch’d beneath, thy eye shall trace
      “A mangled regal race: 
  “A thousand suns have roll’d, since light
  “Rush’d on their solid night—­
“See, o’er that tender frame grim famine hangs,
    “And mocks a mother’s pangs! 
“The last, last drop which warm’d her veins
    “That meagre infant drains—­
  “Then gnaws her fond, sustaining breast—­
    “Stretch’d on her feeble knees, behold
  “Another victim sinks to lasting rest—­
  “Another, yet her matron arms would fold
“Who strives to reach her matron arms in vain—­
  “Too weak her wasted form to raise,
  “On him she bends her eager gaze;
    “She sees the soft imploring eye
“That asks her dear embrace, the cure of pain—­
    “She sees her child at distance die—­
  “But now her stedfast heart can bear
  “Unmov’d, the pressure of despair—­
“When first the winds of winter urge their course
“O’er the pure stream, whose current smoothly glides,
“The heaving river swells its troubled tides;
“But when the bitter blast with keener force,
  “O’er the high wave an icy fetter throws,
“The harden’d wave is fix’d in dead repose.”—­

IX.

“Say who that hoary form? alone he stands,
“And meekly lifts his wither’d hands—­
    “His white beard streams with blood—­
“I see him with a smile, deride
“The wounds that pierce his shrivel’d side,
    “Whence flows a purple flood—­
  “But sudden pangs his bosom tear—­
    “On one big drop, of deeper dye,
    “I see him fix his haggard eye
  “In dark, and wild despair! 
“That sanguine drop which wakes his woe—­
    “Say, spirit! whence its source.”—­
“Ask no more its source to know—­
    “Ne’er shall mortal eye explore
    “Whence flow’d that drop of human gore,
  “Till the starting dead shall rise,
  “Unchain’d from earth, and mount the skies,
“And time shall end his fated course.”—­
  “Now th’ unfathom’d depth behold—­
    “Look but once! a second glance
  “Wraps a heart of human mold
    “In death’s eternal trance.”