Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/214

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Of heaven, but nowhere could the murder rest,A guilty conscience haunted him, by day,By night, in company, in solitude,Restless and wretched, did he bear upon himThe weight of blood; her cries were in his ears,Her stifled groans as when he knelt upon herAlways he heard; always he saw her standBefore his eyes; even in the dead of nightDistinctly seen as tho' in the broad sun,She stood beside the murderer's bed and yawn'dHer ghastly wound; till life itself becameA punishment at last he could not bear,And he confess'd[1] it all, and gave himselfTo death, so terrible, he said, it wasTo have a guilty conscience!
  1. ↑ There must be many persons living who remember these circumstances. They happened two or three and twenty years ago, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. The woman's name was Bees. The stratagem by which she preserved her husband from the press-gang, is also true.
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