They were, it may be well conceived, not of the gayest character.  The responsibility and hazards of the attempt before me, narrowed the chances of my destiny to the one alternative, and I could not shake off gloomy phantoms which represented every phase of the last bloody drama which was to close the career of those who loved, too dearly, our ill-fated land.  But, come what might, my purpose was definitely fixed.  I spent the evening in the deepest gloom, which I endeavoured to dissipate by composing the following stanzas, suggested at the time by involuntary visions of my wife and children at the foot of the gallows:—­

    THE OUTLAW’S WIFE

    Sadly silent she sits, with her head on her hand,
      While she prays, in her heart, to the Ruler above,
    To protect, and to guide to some happier land,
      The joy of her soul and the spouse of her love: 
    And she marks by her pulses, so wild in their play,
      The slow progress of time, as it straggles along;
    And she lists to the wind, as ’tis moaning away,
      And she deems it the chaunt of some funeral song.

    Then anon does she start in her struggles with fear,
      And she strains at the whispers of every one round,
    While she brushes away, half indignant, the tear,
      That will gush, tho’ unbidden, at every fresh sound;
    And she strives to conceal—­oh! how idle the task—­
      The deep lines in her cheek, and the rent in her heart;
    But her neighbours grow pale as they gaze on the mask,
      And more lowly and slowly they talk, as they part.

    When her babes are at rest will she breathe to their breath,
      And keep vigil, how wistfully, over their sleep,
    As it mirrors, poor mourner, the stillness of death,
      And she stirs them, and calls, for she deems it too deep;
    But again does she hush them, first telling them pray,
      Till at length overcharged by the tears yet unshed,
    Will she sink, and as consciousness passes away,
      O’er her pale furrowed cheek, see the hectic o’erspread.

    Slowly thus, day by day, does the fever-fire trace
      Its incessant course down her fast-withering cheek,
    Till the smile that made light in the glow of her face,
      But the faint, fading glimpses of vigour bespeak,
    And her reason will fitfully pass into night—­
      Into night even deeper than that of the blind,
    As the shade of the gibbet-tree looms in her sight. 
      And she fancies a death-scream in th’ echoing wind.