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Show 270 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 opposite are Titanic in dimensions. Upon the summit of the bluff, in the shadow of the ruin by your side, lies a sunken grave. It is the grave of a duellist. Over it trail the long, melancholy branches of a weeping willow. A neat paling once protected the spot from the wanderer's footstep, but it is gone now; only a rotten relic remains. All is still. The sun has long since gone down. One after another the evening sounds have died away in the village at the feet, and one after another the lights have twinkled forth from the casements. A fresh breeze is coming up from the water; the rushing wing of the night- hawk strikes fitfully upon the ear; and yonder sails the beautiful " boat of light," the pale sweet crescent. On that crescent is gazing many a distant friend! What a spot - what an hour to meditate upon the varying destinies of life! I seated myself upon the foot of the grave, which still retained some little elevation from the surrounding soil, and the night- wind sighed through the trailing boughs as if a requiem to him who slumbered beneath. Requiescat in pace, in no meaningless ceremony, might be pronounced over him, for his end was a troubled one. Unfortunate man! you have gone to your account; and that tabernacle in which once burned a beautiful flame has long since been mingling with the dust: [ 12] but I had rather be even as thou art, cold in an unhonoured grave, than to live on and wear away a miserable remnant of existence, that " guilty thing" with crimsoned hand and brow besprinkled with blood. To drag out a weary length of days and nights; to feel life a bitterness, and all its verdure scathed; to walk about among the ranks of men a being " Mark'd, And sign'd, and quoted for a deed of shame;" to feel a stain upon the palm which not all the waters of ocean could wash away; a smell of blood which not all |
