At last, he shut the ponderous tome;
  With a fast and fervent grasp
He strain’d 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 talk’d with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men,
  Whose deeds tradition saves;
Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
  And hid in sudden graves;
Of 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,—­
Wo, wo, unutterable wo,—­
  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!

“Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,
  And one with a heavy stone,
One hurried gash with a hasty knife—­
  And then the deed was done: 
There was nothing lying at my foot,
  But lifeless flesh and bone!

“Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,
  That could not do me ill;
And yet I fear’d him all the more,
  For lying there so still: 
There was a manhood in his look,
  That murder could not kill!

“And, lo! the universal air
  Seem’d lit with ghastly flame,—­
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
  Were looking down in blame: 
I took the dead man by the hand,
  And call’d upon his name!

“Oh, God, it made me quake to see
  Such sense within the slain! 
But when I touch’d the lifeless clay,
  The blood gush’d out amain! 
For every clot, a burning spot,
  Was scorching in my brain!

“My head was like an ardent coal,
  My heart as solid ice;
My wretched, wretched soul I knew
  Was at the Devil’s price: 
A dozen times I groaned—­the dead
  Had never groan’d but twice!