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The Dream of Eugene Aram

by Thomas Hood

 

'Twas in the prime of summer time,
  An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
  Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran, and some that leapt,
  Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,
  And souls untouched by sin;
To a level mead they came, and there
  To drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
  Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
  And shouted as they ran,-
Turning to mirth all things of earth,
  As only boyhood can;
But the Usher sat remote from all,
  A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,
  To catch heaven's blessed breeze;
For a burning thought was in his brow,
  And his bosom ill at ease:
So he leaned his head on his hands, and read
  The book between his knees!

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 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;
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,-
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!

'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 feared him all the more,
  For lying there so still:
There was a manhood in his look,
  That murder could not kill!

             *         *       *

'And now, from forth the frowning sky,
  From the heaven's topmost height,
I heard a voice - the awful voice
  Of the blood-avenging sprite: -
"Though guilty man! take up thy dead
  And hide it from my sight!"

'I took the dreary body up,
  And cast it in a stream -
A sluggish water, black as ink,
  The depth was so extreme: -
My gentle Boy, remember this
  Is nothing but a dream!

'Down went the corse with hollow plunge,
  And vanished in the pool;
Anon I cleansed my bloody hands,
  And washed my forehead cool,
And sat among the urchins young,
  That evening, in the school.

         *       *         *

'Oh, God! that horrid, horrid dream
  Besets me now awake!
Again - again, with dizzy brain,
  The human life I take;
And my red right hand grows raging hot,
  Like Cranmer's at the stake.

'And still no peace for the restless clay
  Will wave or mould allow;
The horrid thing pursues my soul, -
  It stands before me now!'
The fearful Boy looked up, and saw
  Huge drops upon his brow.

That very night, while gentle sleep
  The urchin eyelids kissed,
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
  Through the cold and heavy mist:
And Eugene Aram walked between,
  With gyves upon his wrist.

 
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