Page:The complete poems of Emily Bronte.djvu/260

204 Showed a fixed impress of keen suffering past,

And the raised lids did show

No wandering gleam below

But a dark anguish, self-destroyed at last.

Long he gazed and held his breath,

Kneeling on the blood-stained heath;

Long he gazed those lids beneath,

Looking into Death!

Not a word from his followers fell;

They stood by mute and pale;

That black treason uttered well

Its own heart-harrowing tale.

But earth was bathed in other gore;

There were crimson drops across the moor,

And Lord Eldred glancing round,

Saw those tokens on the ground.

'Bring him back!' he hoarsely said;

'Wounded is the traitor fled;

Vengeance may hold but minutes brief

And you have all your lives for grief.'

He is left alone—he sees the stars

Their quiet course continuing:

And, far away, down Elmor scars

He hears the stream its waters fling;