And hark!—a sound comes big with fate, The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes—Eight!— List to that low funereal bell: It is tolling, alas! a living man's knell! And see!—from forth that opening door They come—He steps that threshold o'er Who never shall tread upon threshold more. —God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see That pale wan man's mute agony, The glare of that wild despairing eye, Now bent on the crowd, now turn'd to the sky, As though 'twere scanning, in doubt and in fear, The path of the Spirit's unknown career;
Those pinion'd arms, those hands that ne'er Shall be lifted again,—not ev'n in prayer; That heaving chest!——Enough—'tis done! The bolt has fallen!—the Spirit is gone— For weal or for woe is known to but One! Oh! 'twas a fearsome sight! Ah me! A deed to shudder at,—not to see.
Again that clock!—'tis time, 'tis time! The hour is past:—with its earliest chime The cord is sever'd, the lifeless clay By "dungeon villains" is borne away: Nine!—'twas the last concluding stroke! And then—my Lord Tomnoddy awoke! And Tregooze and Sir Carnaby Jenks arose, And Captain M'Fuze, with the black on his nose; And they stared at each other, as much as to say "Hollo! Hollo! Here's a Rum Go! Why, Captain!—my Lord!—Here's the Devil to pay! The fellow's been cut down and taken away! What's to be done? We've miss'd all the fun! Why, they'll laugh at, and quiz us all over the town, We are all of us done so uncommonly brown!"
What was to be done?—'twas perfectly plain That they could not well hang the man over again:— What was to be done?—The man was dead!— Nought could be done—nought could be said; So—my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!
[EPIGRAM.]
'Tis strange, amid the many trades By which men gather riches, That ridicule should most attach To those who make our breeches! But so it is; yet, as they sew, Rich is the harvest made: Then call not theirs, unseemly wags! A so-so sort of trade. R. J.
