Poem by Laura Sophia Temple

The Murderer

Hark! to the muttering blast of Night
That sweeps o'er the heath its ruffling wing;
Now does it rush o'er the dark-cliff's height
And now in the ruins loudly sing.

And did I not hear a fiend-like scream
Mingling its grief with the raving storm?
And does not the lightning's zig-zag gleam
Give to my eye-sight a ghostly form?

Yes! yes! 'tis the wailing voice of woe
That pours its dirge to the midnight gloom;
Yes! yes! 'tis a spirit shall howling go
'Till the judgment day shall seal its doom.

Oh! 'tis the Murderer Jasper's shade
Whose pale-corse hangs on the heath hard by,
There does it wither and there does it fade,
And nightly swing to the cold-gale's sigh.

Long has his gibbet creak'd to the blast,
And long has his dark-ghost wander'd near,
And oft has the traveller journeying past
Shrunk at the sight appall'd by fear.

And well may he shrink--for round the heath
Fell demons dance to the cold-moon's light,
And oft does the pale, pale form of Death
Ride by on the dusky cloud of Night.

1. Sonnet 1. To the Evening Gale
2. The Exile
3. Lines Written on Reading Young's Night Thoughts--
4. To the Genius of Romance
5. On Hearing the Sound of Music at a Distance

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