Poems (Eliza Gabriella Lewis)/The Blasted Oak

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THE BLASTED OAK.
Dark on the heath the night gloom fell, Loud sighed the wind; with fitful spell  The light'ning glared around, And meeting clouds, with angry roar, The burthen of the tempest bore, Far o'er the trembling ground.
Hark! heard ye not, 'mid torrents borne, The echo of a distant horn  Upon the moaning blast? And clatt'ring hoofs as if, with speed, For life, for life spurred on a steed— It comes, and now 't hath past,
With bloody spur, and frantic mien—Too well the rider's haste, I ween, Of crime, of terror spoke; And ever and anon he threw A fearful glance, where lonely grew  An old and gnarled oak.
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For 'neath that leafless trunk hath lainThe mould'ring corse, of one long slain; (Oh, God! can such things be?)The rider spurred his courser on;"Oh! for the blessed beam of morn To light me cheerily!"
On, on the madden'd courser fled,His snorting nostrils speak his dread— With visage ghastly paleThe rider spurred;—"My gallant steedWhy faulter at thy master's need? Why tremble thus, and quail?
Avaunt, ye spirits of the slain.My horn shall gaily sound again, To bid yon loiterers haste."He said; and wound a trembling blast—Started the horse, as, moaning, pass'd, A shadow o'er the waste.
"'Tis he!"—the trembling murderer cries,"Oh, God!—I see his pleading eyes— That wide and bleeding gash:— ​Hah! ha!—'tis but a shadow, born Of clouds—(such oft the earth hath worn;)  Scared by the lightning's flash!
Down came Heaven's bolt—a forked light Play'd round the tree; and, by the bright  And vivid flame it cast, I saw the murderer, writhing, fall; Then closed around night's gloomy pall,  And louder moaned the blast.

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