| |
| THE NIGHT was stormy; yet the clang | |
| Of hammers through the darkness rang, | |
| And on the rampart’s vapory swamp | |
| High swung one faint and fitful lamp, | |
| And came upon the gusty swell | 5 |
| The challenge of the sentinel, | |
| As if some deed were doing there | |
| Unfit for man to see or hear. | |
| |
| Morn broke on twilight, dim and slow; | |
| By Mannheim’s gates were signs of woe,— | 10 |
| A scaffold hung with black, a chair, | |
| A sable bench, a sabre bare, | |
| Told that before the setting sun | |
| Some wretch’s chain should be undone. | |
| |
| The gates roll back, and from the wall | 15 |
| Come chargers’ tramp and trumpet-call; | |
| And, in the horsemen’s midst, the dawn | |
| Gleams on a face lone, wild, and wan. | |
| The dazzled eye, the lip of blue, | |
| Tell that to them the light is new; | 20 |
| Tell of the chain, the heavy air, | |
| That damps the felon’s sleepless lair. | |
| The hand,—that pale, thin hand, which now | |
| So feebly wanders o’er the brow, | |
| By that was murder done; the stain | 25 |
| That left the hand has dyed the brain. | |
| |
| The troops have reached the fatal stair, | |
| The headsman stands beside the chair; | |
| The pale, uncovered multitude | |
| Are hushed as death; now—blood for blood! | 30 |
| |
| High Heaven! what burning thoughts must roll | |
| Through man beside that fearful goal? | |
| Conscience has started from her sleep; | |
| Now, man of sin! thy harvest reap. | |
| He sees a traitor’s step intrude | 35 |
| Upon an old man’s solitude; | |
| He sees the dagger in his heart, | |
| The writhe ere soul and body part, | |
| The gasp, the dying gush of gore: | |
| The murderer dares to think no more, | 40 |
| Curses the moment’s frantic zeal, | |
| And hurries to the headsman’s steel. | |
| |
| Yet, when beneath the rising sun | |
| His native mountains lovely shone, | |
| He raised one eastward, eager glare, | 45 |
| Wildly inhaled the living air, | |
| On sun and sky his eyeball cast, | |
| Like one who on them looked his last; | |
| Gave to the world one dreary sigh, | |
| Then summoned his sad strength to die. | 50 |
| |
| The sword flashed round, the red blood sprang, | |
| To heaven arose the trumpet-clang,— | |
| And of the murderer all that lay | |
| Upon that floor was blood and clay. | |
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