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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395932" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Hall Of Justice</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Part I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VAGRANT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Take, take away thy barbarous hand,<br>And let me to thy Master speak;<br>Remit awhile the harsh command,<br>And hear me, or my heart will break.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MAGISTRATE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fond wretch! and what canst thou relate,<br>But deeds of sorrow, shame, and sin?<br>Thy crime is proved, thou know'st thy fate;<br>But come, thy tale!--begin, begin! -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VAGRANT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My crime!--This sick'ning child to feed.<br>I seized the food, your witness saw;<br>I knew your laws forbade the deed,<br>But yielded to a stronger law.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Know'st thou, to Nature's great command<br>All human laws are frail and weak?<br>Nay! frown not--stay his eager hand,<br>And hear me, or my heart will break.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In this, th' adopted babe I hold<br>With anxious fondness to my breast,<br>My heart's sole comfort I behold,<br>More dear than life, when life was blest;<br>I saw her pining, fainting, cold,<br>I begg'd--but vain was my request.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I saw the tempting food, and seized -<br>My infant-sufferer found relief;<br>And in the pilfer'd treasure pleased,<br>Smiled on my guilt, and hush'd my grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I have griefs of other kind,<br>Troubles and sorrows more severe;<br>Give me to ease my tortured mind,<br>Lend to my woes a patient ear;<br>And let me--if I may not find<br>A friend to help--find one to hear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet nameless let me plead--my name<br>Would only wake the cry of scorn;<br>A child of sin, conceived in shame,<br>Brought forth in woe, to misery born.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My mother dead, my father lost,<br>I wander'd with a vagrant crew;<br>A common care, a common cost;<br>Their sorrows and their sins I knew;<br>With them, by want on error forced,<br>Like them, I base and guilty grew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Few are my years, not so my crimes;<br>The age which these sad looks declare,<br>Is Sorrow's work, it is not Time's,<br>And I am old in shame and care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Taught to believe the world a place<br>Where every stranger was a foe,<br>Train'd in the arts that mark our race,<br>To what new people could I go?<br>Could I a better life embrace,<br>Or live as virtue dictates? No! -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So through the land I wandering went,<br>And little found of grief or joy;<br>But lost my bosom's sweet content<br>When first I loved the Gipsy-Boy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A sturdy youth he was and tall,<br>His looks would all his soul declare;<br>His piercing eyes were deep and small,<br>And strongly curl'd his raven-hair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, AARON had each manly charm,<br>All in the May of youthful pride,<br>He scarcely fear'd his father's arm,<br>And every other arm defied. -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oft, when they grew in anger warm,<br>(Whom will not love and power divide?)<br>I rose, their wrathful souls to calm,<br>Not yet in sinful combat tried.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His father was our party's chief,<br>And dark and dreadful was his look;<br>His presence fill'd my heart with grief,<br>Although to me he kindly spoke.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With Aaron I delighted went,<br>His favour was my bliss and pride;<br>In growing hope our days we spent,<br>Love's growing charms in either spied;<br>It saw them all which Nature lent,<br>It lent them all which she denied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Could I the father's kindness prize,<br>Or grateful looks on him bestow,<br>Whom I beheld in wrath arise,<br>When Aaron sunk beneath his blow?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He drove him down with wicked hand,<br>It was a dreadful sight to see;<br>Then vex'd him, till he left the land,<br>And told his cruel love to me;<br>The clan were all at his command,<br>Whatever his command might be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The night was dark, the lanes were deep,<br>And one by one they took their way;<br>He bade me lay me down and sleep,<br>I only wept and wish'd for day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Accursed be the love he bore,<br>Accursed was the force he used,<br>So let him of his God implore<br>For mercy, and be so refused!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You frown again,--to show my wrong<br>Can I in gentle language speak?<br>My woes are deep, my words are strong, -<br>And hear me, or my heart will break.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MAGISTRATE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I hear thy words, I feel thy pain;<br>Forbear awhile to speak thy woes;<br>Receive our aid, and then again<br>The story of thy life disclose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For, though seduced and led astray,<br>Thou'st travell'd far and wander'd long;<br>Thy God hath seen thee all the way,<br>And all the turns that led thee wrong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Part II</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>MAGISTRATE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, now again thy woes impart,<br>Tell all thy sorrows, all thy sin;<br>We cannot heal the throbbing heart<br>Till we discern the wounds within.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Compunction weeps our guilt away,<br>The sinner's safety is his pain;<br>Such pangs for our offences pay,<br>And these severer griefs are gain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VAGRANT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The son came back--he found us wed,<br>Then dreadful was the oath he swore;<br>His way through Blackburn Forest led, -<br>His father we beheld no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of all our daring clan not one<br>Would on the doubtful subject dwell;<br>For all esteem'd the injured son,<br>And fear'd the tale which he could tell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I had mightier cause for fear,<br>For slow and mournful round my bed<br>I saw a dreadful form appear, -<br>It came when I and Aaron wed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes! we were wed, I know my crime, -<br>We slept beneath the elmin tree;<br>But I was grieving all the time,<br>And Aaron frown'd my tears to see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For he not yet had felt the pain<br>That rankles in a wounded breast;<br>He waked to sin, then slept again,<br>Forsook his God, yet took his rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I was forced to feign delight,<br>And joy in mirth and music sought, -<br>And mem'ry now recalls the night,<br>With such surprise and horror fraught,<br>That reason felt a moment's flight,<br>And left a mind to madness wrought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When waking, on my heaving breast<br>I felt a hand as cold as death:<br>A sudden fear my voice suppress'd,<br>A chilling terror stopp'd my breath.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I seem'd--no words can utter how!<br>For there my father-husband stood,<br>And thus he said: --'Will God allow,<br>The great Avenger just and Good,<br>A wife to break her marriage vow?<br>A son to shed his father's blood?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I trembled at the dismal sounds,<br>But vainly strove a word to say;<br>So, pointing to his bleeding wounds,<br>The threat'ning spectre stalk'd away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I brought a lovely daughter forth,<br>His father's child, in Aaron's bed;<br>He took her from me in his wrath,<br>'Where is my child?'--'Thy child is dead.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas false--we wander'd far and wide,<br>Through town and country, field and fen,<br>Till Aaron, fighting, fell and died,<br>And I became a wife again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I then was young: --my husband sold<br>My fancied charms for wicked price;<br>He gave me oft for sinful gold,<br>The slave, but not the friend of vice: -<br>Behold me, Heaven! my pains behold,<br>And let them for my sins suffice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The wretch who lent me thus for gain,<br>Despised me when my youth was fled;<br>Then came disease, and brought me pain: -<br>Come, Death, and bear me to the dead!<br>For though I grieve, my grief is vain,<br>And fruitless all the tears I shed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">True, I was not to virtue train'd,<br>Yet well I knew my deeds were ill;<br>By each offence my heart was pain'd<br>I wept, but I offended still;<br>My better thoughts my life disdain'd,<br>But yet the viler led my will.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My husband died, and now no more<br>My smile was sought, or ask'd my hand,<br>A widow'd vagrant, vile and poor,<br>Beneath a vagrant's vile command.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ceaseless I roved the country round,<br>To win my bread by fraudful arts,<br>And long a poor subsistence found,<br>By spreading nets for simple hearts.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though poor, and abject, and despised,<br>Their fortunes to the crowd I told;<br>I gave the young the love they prized,<br>And promised wealth to bless the old.<br>Schemes for the doubtful I devised,<br>And charms for the forsaken sold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length for arts like these confined<br>In prison with a lawless crew,<br>I soon perceived a kindred mind,<br>And there my long-lost daughter knew;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His father's child, whom Aaron gave<br>To wander with a distant clan,<br>The miseries of the world to brave,<br>And be the slave of vice and man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She knew my name--we met in pain;<br>Our parting pangs can I express?<br>She sail'd a convict o'er the main,<br>And left an heir to her distress.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is that heir to shame and pain,<br>For whom I only could descry<br>A world of trouble and disdain:<br>Yet, could I bear to see her die,<br>Or stretch her feeble hands in vain,<br>And, weeping, beg of me supply?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No! though the fate thy mother knew<br>Was shameful! shameful though thy race<br>Have wander'd all a lawless crew,<br>Outcasts despised in every place;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet as the dark and muddy tide,<br>When far from its polluted source,<br>Becomes more pure and purified,<br>Flows in a clear and happy course;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In thee, dear infant! so may end<br>Our shame, in thee our sorrows cease,<br>And thy pure course will then extend,<br>In floods of joy, o'er vales of peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! by the GOD who loves to spare,<br>Deny me not the boon I crave;<br>Let this loved child your mercy share,<br>And let me find a peaceful grave:<br>Make her yet spotless soul your care,<br>And let my sins their portion have;<br>Her for a better fate prepare,<br>And punish whom 'twere sin to save!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MAGISTRATE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Recall the word, renounce the thought,<br>Command thy heart and bend thy knee;<br>There is to all a pardon brought,<br>A ransom rich, assured and free;<br>'Tis full when found, 'tis found if sought,<br>Oh! seek it, till 'tis seal'd to thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VAGRANT.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But how my pardon shall I know?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MAGISTRATE.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By feeling dread that 'tis not sent,<br>By tears for sin that freely flow,<br>By grief, that all thy tears are spent,<br>By thoughts on that great debt we owe,<br>With all the mercy God has lent,<br>By suffering what thou canst not show,<br>Yet showing how thine heart is rent,<br>Till thou canst feel thy bosom glow,<br>And say, 'MY SAVIOUR, I REPENT!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395932" data-title="The Hall Of Justice de George Crabbe" data-description="Part I

VAGRANT.

Take, take away thy barbarous hand,
And let me to thy Master speak;
Remit awhile the harsh command,
And hear me, or my heart will break.

MAGISTRATE.

Fond wretch! and what canst thou relate,
But deeds of sorrow, shame, and sin?
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