Wisconsin Herald

The Murderer's Confession,
BY HORACE SMITH.

No hint finds emission that breathes of suspicion,
None dare utter a sound when an inquest has
found
His death accidental:
Whence then and wherefore, having nothing to
care for,
These agonies mental?
Why grieve and why sicken, frame-withered,
soul-stricken?
Age-paralyzed, sickly, he must have died quickly,
Each day brought some new ill;
Life's blessings?—Oh, liar! all are curses most
dire—
In the midst of my revels,
His eyes ever stare at me, flare at me, glare at
me.
Before me, when reading my manors outspreading,
There yawns an abysmal cliff, precipice dismal;
Isolation has vanished, all silence is banished.
Where'er I immure me his death-shrieks pursue
me,
I am haunted by devils.
My wine, clear and ruddy, seems turbid and
bloody;
I cannot quaff water—recalling his slaughter,
My terror it doubles—'tis beaded with bubbles.
Each filled with his breath,
And every glass in each hisses—"Assassin!
My curse shall affright thee, haunt, harrow, and
blight thee,
In life and in death!"
O punishment hellish!—the house I embellish,
From centre to corner upbraids its adorner.—
A door's lowest creaking swells into a shrieking;
Against me each column bears evidence solemn.
Each statue's a Nemesis:
They follow, infest me, they strive to arrest me,
Till, in terrified sadness that verges on madness,
I rush from the premises.
The country's amenity brings no serenity,
Each rural sound seeming a menace or screaming;
There is not a bird or beast but cries—"Murder!
There goes the offender!
Dog him, waylay him, encompass him, stay him,
And make him surrender!"
My flower-beds splendid seem eyes blood-distended—
His eyes, ever staring, and flaring, and glaring!
I turn from them quickly, but phantoms more
sickly
Drive me hither and thither:
I would forfeit most gladly wealth stolen so madly,
Quitting grandeur and revelry to fly from this
devilry,
But whither—oh! whither?
Hence, idle delusions: hence, fears and confusions!
Not a single friend's severance lessens men's reverence,
No neighbor of rank quits my sumptuous banquets
Without lauding their donor:
Throughout the wide country I'm famed for my
bounty,
All hold me in honor.
Let the dotard and craven by fear be enslaven.
They have vanished! How fast fly these images
ghastly,
When, in firm self-reliance,
You determine on treating the brain's sickly
cheating
With scorn and defiance!
Ha! ha! I am fearless henceforward, and tearless,
No coinage of fancy, no dream's necromancy,
Shall sadden and darken—God help me!—hist!—
hearken!
'Tis the shriek, soul-appalling, he uttered when
falling.
By day thus affrighted, 'tis worse when benighted;
With the clock's midnight boom from the church
o'er his tomb
There comes a sharp screaming, too fearful for
dreaming;
Bone fingers, unholy, draw the bed curtains slowly—
O God! how they stare at me, flare at me, glare at
me,
Those eyes of a Gorgon!
Beneath the clothes sinking, with shuddering
shrinking,
A mental orgasm and bodily spasm
Convulse every organ.
Nerves a thousand times stronger could bear it no
longer.
Grief, sickness, compunction, dismay in conjunction,
Nights and days ghost prolific, more grim and
terrific
Than judges and juries,
Make the heart writhe and falter more than gibbet and halter.
Arrest me, secure me, seize, handcuff, immure
me!—
I own my transgression—will make full confession—
Quick—quick! let me plunge in some dark vaulted
dungeon,
Where, though tried and death-dated, I may not
be baited
By devils and furies!