I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, But I know that he lies and listens mute In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes : Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls! It is all used up for that. 7. Tell him now she is standing here at my head ; Not beautiful now, not even kind; He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind, But is ever the one thing silent here. She is not of us, as I divine; She comes from another stiller world of the dead, Stiller, not fairer than mine. 8. But I know where a garden grows, Fairer than aught in the world beside, All made up of the lily and rose That blow by night, when the season is good, To the sound of dancing music and flutes : It is only flowers, they had no fruits, And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood; For the keeper was one, so full of pride, He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride; For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, Would he have that hole in his side? 9. But what will the old man say? He laid a cruel snare in a pit To catch a friend of mine one stormy day; Yet now I could even weep to think of it ; For what will the old man say When he comes to the second corpse in the pit? 10. Friend, to be struck by the public foe, Then to strike him and lay him low, That were a public merit, far, Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin; But the red life spilt for a private blow 11. O me, why have they not buried me deep enough? Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, Me, that was never a quiet sleeper ? Maybe still I am but half-dead; Then I cannot be wholly dumb; I will cry to the steps above my head, And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come To bury me, bury me Deeper, ever so little deeper. |