NOTE. -- I took this story from the "Newgate Calendar." Edward Blastock suffered at Tyburn on the 26th of May, 1738. Being in the direst want, and seeing his sister and her children in an equal misery, he yielded to the solicitations of his sister's husband, and joined with him in becoming highwaymen. They went so far as to rob a gentleman of a few shillings. Then Edward Blastock, finding a warrant was out against him, took refuge in his sister's house. She betrayed him to his death. THE pang of the long century of rains, Melting the last flesh from the bone, Cries to the heart: "At least the bone remains, -- If this alone." My bone cries to my mother's womb: Why were you not my tomb? Why was I born from the same womb as she Who sold my heart, my blood, who stole even my grave from me? I crept to steal in the rich man's street That my sister's starving babes might eat -- (Death, you have known such rags as hold The starved man's heart together, -- Death, you have known such cold!) I crept to hide in my sister's room, And dreamed it safe as my mother's womb: But there was a price upon the head Of one who stole that her babes might feed, So my sister said, "I must go to buy Us bread with this pence. . . ." And, for this, I die -- Beyond my Death . . . with no grave to lie In, hide my heart deep down in that hole. For my sister went to sell her soul And my heart, and my life, and the love I gave. . . . She went to rob me of my grave. And I would, I would the heart I gave Were dead and mouldering in that grave, I would my name were quite forgot, And my death dead beneath Death's rot. But I'd give the last rag of my flesh About my heart to the endless cold Could I know again the childish kiss My Judas gave of old -- Oh, Christ that hung between two men like me, -- Could I but know she was not this, -- not this! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE'S CAUTION by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD WHERE SHALL I DIE? by MARIA ABDY BEAUTY OF NATURE by HENRY ALFORD TO A WOMAN by KENNETH SLADE ALLING WARNING by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB |