Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside,— For the peace of his soul he read that book In the golden eventide; Much study had made him very lean, And pale, and leaden-eyed.
At last he shut the ponderous tome; With a fast and fervent grasp He strained the dusky covers close, And fixed the brazen hasp: "O God! could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp!"
Then leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took,— Now up the mead, then down the mead, And past a shady nook,— And, lo! he saw a little boy That pored upon a book.
"My gentle lad, what is 't you read,— Romance or fairy fable? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable?" The young boy gave an upward glance,— "It is 'The Death of Abel.'"
The usher took six hasty strides, As smit with sudden pain,— Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again; And down he sat beside the lad, And talked with him of Cain;
And, long since then, of bloody men, Whose deeds tradition saves; And lonely folk cut off unseen, And hid in sudden graves; And horrid stabs, in groves forlorn; And murders done in caves;
And how the sprites of injured men Shriek upward from the sod; Ay, how the ghostly hand will point To show the burial clod; And unknown facts of guilty acts Are seen in dreams from God.
He told how murderers walk the earth Beneath the curse of Cain,— With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain; For blood has left upon their souls Its everlasting stain!
"And well," quoth he, "I know for truth Their pangs must be extreme— Woe, woe, unutterable woe!— Who spill life's sacred stream. For why? Methought, last night I wrought A murder, in a dream!
"One that had never done me wrong,— A feeble man and old; I led him to a lonely field,— The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold!