The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after, as the rays of setting sun
Should illume the sky with beauty; aged sires with heads of white,
Long should tell the little children,
Curfew did not ring that night.
O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him and her brow,
Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eye with misty light:
"Go, your lover lives," said Cromwell,
"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"
* * * * *
GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.
Here were not mingled, in the city's pomp,
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal trump,
Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature's doom;
Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, beloved of all,
Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife, that seldom might befall;
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.
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