Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>English Eclogues II - The Grandmother's Tale</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">JANE.<br>Harry! I'm tired of playing. We'll draw round<br>The fire, and Grandmamma perhaps will tell us<br>One of her stories.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">HARRY.<br>Aye--dear Grandmamma!<br>A pretty story! something dismal now;<br>A bloody murder.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">JANE.<br>Or about a ghost.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Nay, nay, I should but frighten you. You know<br>The other night when I was telling you<br>About the light in the church-yard, how you trembled<br>Because the screech-owl hooted at the window,<br>And would not go to bed.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>JANE.<br>Why Grandmamma<br>You said yourself you did not like to hear him.<br>Pray now! we wo'nt be frightened.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Well, well, children!<br>But you've heard all my stories. Let me see,--<br>Did I never tell you how the smuggler murdered<br>The woman down at Pill?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>No--never! never!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Not how he cut her head off in the stable?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>Oh--now! do tell us that!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>You must have heard<br>Your Mother, children! often tell of her.<br>She used to weed in the garden here, and worm<br>Your uncle's dogs, and serve the house with coal;<br>And glad enough she was in winter time<br>To drive her asses here! it was cold work<br>To follow the slow beasts thro' sleet and snow,<br>And here she found a comfortable meal<br>And a brave fire to thaw her, for poor Moll<br>Was always welcome.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>Oh--'twas blear-eyed Moll<br>The collier woman,--a great ugly woman,<br>I've heard of her.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Ugly enough poor soul!<br>At ten yards distance you could hardly tell<br>If it were man or woman, for her voice<br>Was rough as our old mastiff's, and she wore<br>A man's old coat and hat,--and then her face!<br>There was a merry story told of her,<br>How when the press-gang came to take her husband<br>As they were both in bed, she heard them coming,<br>Drest John up in her night-cap, and herself<br>Put on his clothes and went before the Captain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>JANE.<br>And so they prest a woman!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>'Twas a trick<br>She dearly loved to tell, and all the country<br>Soon knew the jest, for she was used to travel<br>For miles around. All weathers and all hours<br>She crossed the hill, as hardy as her beasts,<br>Bearing the wind and rain and winter frosts,<br>And if she did not reach her home at night<br>She laid her down in the stable with her asses<br>And slept as sound as they did.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>With her asses!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Yes, and she loved her beasts. For tho' poor wretch<br>She was a terrible reprobate and swore<br>Like any trooper, she was always good<br>To the dumb creatures, never loaded them<br>Beyond their strength, and rather I believe<br>Would stint herself than let the poor beasts want,<br>Because, she said, they could not ask for food.<br>I never saw her stick fall heavier on them<br>Than just with its own weight. She little thought<br>This tender-heartedness would be her death!<br>There was a fellow who had oftentimes,<br>As if he took delight in cruelty.<br>Ill-used her Asses. He was one who lived<br>By smuggling, and, for she had often met him<br>Crossing the down at night, she threatened him,<br>If he tormented them again, to inform<br>Of his unlawful ways. Well--so it was--<br>'Twas what they both were born to, he provoked her,<br>She laid an information, and one morn<br>They found her in the stable, her throat cut<br>From ear to ear,'till the head only hung<br>Just by a bit of skin.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>JANE.<br>Oh dear! oh dear!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>I hope they hung the man!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>They took him up;<br>There was no proof, no one had seen the deed,<br>And he was set at liberty. But God<br>Whoss eye beholdeth all things, he had seen<br>The murder, and the murderer knew that God<br>Was witness to his crime. He fled the place,<br>But nowhere could he fly the avenging hand<br>Of heaven, but nowhere could the murderer rest,<br>A guilty conscience haunted him, by day,<br>By night, in company, in solitude,<br>Restless and wretched, did he bear upon him<br>The weight of blood; her cries were in his ears,<br>Her stifled groans as when he knelt upon her<br>Always he heard; always he saw her stand<br>Before his eyes; even in the dead of night<br>Distinctly seen as tho' in the broad sun,<br>She stood beside the murderer's bed and yawn'd<br>Her ghastly wound; till life itself became<br>A punishment at last he could not bear,<br>And he confess'd it all, and gave himself<br>To death, so terrible, he said, it was<br>To have a guilty conscience!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>HARRY.<br>Was he hung then?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>GRANDMOTHER.<br>Hung and anatomized. Poor wretched man,<br>Your uncles went to see him on his trial,<br>He was so pale, so thin, so hollow-eyed,<br>And such a horror in his meagre face,<br>They said he look'd like one who never slept.<br>He begg'd the prayers of all who saw his end<br>And met his death with fears that well might warn<br>From guilt, tho' not without a hope in Christ.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Robert+Southey">Robert Southey</a></strong></div>