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And drew my midnight curtains round With fingers bloody red!

"All night I lay in agony,

In anguish dark and deep;
My fevered eyes I dared not close,
But stared aghast at Sleep;
For Sin had rendered unto her
The keys of hell to keep!

"All night I lay in agony,

From weary chime to chime;
With one besetting horrid hint
That racked me all the time,
A mighty yearning, like the first
Fierce impulse unto crime,

"One stern tyrannic thought, that made
All other thoughts its slave!
Stronger and stronger every pulse

Did that temptation crave,

Still urging me to go and see
The dead man in his grave!

"Heavily I rose up, as soon
As light was in the sky,
And sought the black accursed pool
With a wild, misgiving eye;
And I saw the dead in the river-bed,
For the faithless stream was dry.
"Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing;
But I never marked its morning flight,
I never heard it sing,

For I was stooping once again
Under the horrid thing.

"With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran;

There was no time to dig a grave

Before the day began,

In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves,
I hid the murdered man!

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Whn Reats

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My course is run, my errand done; I go to Him from whom I came ; But never yet shall set the sun

Of glory that adorns my name; And Roman hearts shall long be sick, When men shall think of Alaric.

My course is run, my errand done;
But darker ministers of fate,
Impatient, round the eternal throne,

And in the caves of vengeance, wait; And soon mankind shall blench away Before the name of Attila.

EDWARD EVERETT.

THE TOMB OF CYRUS.

A VOICE from stately Babylon, a mourner's rising cry,

And Lydia's marble palaces give back their deep reply;

And like the sounds of distant winds o'er ocean's billows sent,

Ecbatana, thy storied walls send forth the wild lament.

For he, the dreaded arbiter, a dawning empire's trust,

The eagle child of victory, the great, the wise, the just,

Assyria's famed and conquering sword, and Media's regal strength,

Hath bowed his head to earth beneath a mightier hand at length.

And darkly through a sorrowing land Euphrates winds along,

And Cydnus with its silver wave hath heard the funeral song;

And through the wide and sultry East, and through the frozen North,

The tabret and the harp are hushed, the wail of grief goes forth.

There is a solitary tomb, with rankling weeds o'ergrown,

A single palm bends mournfully beside the moldering stone,

Amidst whose leaves the passing breeze with fitful gust and slow

Seems sighing forth a feeble dirge for him who sleeps below.

Beside, its sparkling drops of foam a desert fountain showers;

And, floating calm, the lotus wreathes its red and scented flowers;

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