The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844. Various

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      The leaves which wan Autumn’s breath had seared

      Stern Winter swept away;

      Dark and dreary all earth appeared—

      The very beams of the bright sun feared

      To pursue their accustom’d way.

      Mirth’s merry laugh at that moment fled,

      And Pleasure’s fair cheek grew pale:

      The living sat like the stony dead,

      The rough torrent froze in its craggy bed,

      And Heaven’s dew turned to hail.

      The forest trees waved their heads on high,

      And shrunk from the storm’s fierce stroke;

      The lightning flash’d as from God’s own eye,

      The thunderbolt crash’d through the startled sky,

      As it split the defying oak.

      The proud lion trembled and hush’d his roar,

      The tigress crouch’d in fear;

      The angry sea beat the shuddering shore,

      And the deafening voice of the elements’ war

      Burst terribly on the ear.

      I stood by the bed where the prisoner lay;

      The lamp gave a fitful light:

      His soul was struggling to pass away;

      Oh, God! how I pray’d for the coming of day!

      Death was awful in such a night.

      His cheek was hollow, and sunk, and wan,

      And his lips were thin and blue;

      The unearthly look of that dying man,

      As his tale of horror he thus began,

      Sent a chill my warm heart through:

      ‘The plague-spots of crime have sunk deep in my heart,

      And withered my whirling brain;

      The deep stamp of murder could never depart

      From this brow, where the Angel of Death’s fiery dart

      Had graven the curse of Cain.

      ‘Remorse has oft waved his dusky wings

      O’er the path I was doom’d to tread;

      Despair has long frozen Hope’s warm springs;

      I have felt the soul’s madness which Memory brings,

      When she wakes up the murder’d dead.

      ‘Tell me not now of God’s mercy or love!