THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX, AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

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EUGENE ARAM'S DREAM.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

[THOMAS HOOD, English poet, was born May 23, 1798, in London; son of a bookseller and nephew of an engraver. A merchant's clerk at thirteen, the engraver's apprentice at nineteen, his health gave out from the confinement of each; he next became a subeditor of the London Magazine for two years; then a professional man of letters, editing The Gem in 1829, starting the Comic Annual in 1830, succeeding Hook as editor of the New Monthly in 1841, and starting Hood's Own in 1844. He died May 3, 1845. An eleven-volume edition of his works was issued 1882-1884. His fame rests chiefly on his matchless lines "The Song of the Shirt," "The Bridge of Sighs," "Fair Ines," "A Deathbed," "I Remember," "Eugene Aram's Dream," etc.; but his humorous pieces, like "The Lost Heir," "Ode to a Child," etc., the tragi-grotesque "Miss Kilmansegg," and others, swell its volume.]

"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
They 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 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 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;

For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream!