But scarce to reason-every sense
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense;
And each frail fibre of her brain

(As bow-strings, when relaxed by rain,
The erring arrow launch aside)

Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide-
The past a blank, the future black,
With glimpses of a dreary track,

Like lightning on the desart path,
When midnight storms are mustering wrath.
She feared-she felt that something ill
Lay on her soul, so deep and chill-
That there was sin and shame she knew ;
That some one was to die-but who?
She had forgotten :-did she breathe?
Could this be still the earth beneath?
The sky above, and men around;
Or were they fiends who now so frowned
On one, before whose eyes each eye
Till then had smiled in sympathy?
All was confused and undefined,
To her all-jarred and wandering mind;
A chaos of wild hopes and fears:
And now in laughter, now in tears,
But madly still in each extreme,

She strove with that convulsive dream;
For so it seemed on her to break:

Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!'

XV.

The Convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;

In the grey square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro."

Heavily to the heart they go!

Hark! the hymn is singing—

The song for the dead below,

Or the living who shortly shall be so!
For a departing being's soul

The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll:
He is near his mortal goal;

Kneeling at the Friars's knee;

Sad to hear and piteous to see-
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,

With the block before and the guards around-
And the headsman with his bare arm ready,
That the blow may be both swift and steady,
Feels if the axe be sharp and true-
Since he set its edge anew:

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather
To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father.

It is a lovely hour as yet

XVI.

Before the summer sun shall set,
Which rose upon that heavy day,
And mocked it with his steadiest ray;
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As his last confession pouring
To the monk, his doom deploring

In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.

That high sun on his head did glisten
As he there did bow and listen-

And the rings of chesnut hair

Curled half down his neck so bare;

But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter-
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!
Even the stern stood chilled with awe:
Dark the crime, and just the law-
Yet they shuddered as they saw.

XVII.

The parting prayers are said and over
Of that false son-and daring lover!
His beads and sins were all recounted,
His hours to their last minute mounted-
His mantling cloak before was stripped,
His bright brown locks must now be clipped,
'Tis done-all closely are they shorn-
The vest which till this moment worn-
The scarf which Parisina gave→

Must not adorn him to the grave.
Even that must now be thrown aside,
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied;
But no-that last indignity

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,

In deep disdain were half renewed,
When headsman's hands prepared to bind
Those eyes which would not brook such blind:
As if they dared not look on death.

« No-yours my forfeit blood and breath« These hands are chained-but let me die "At least with an unshackled eye

«Strike: »and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bowed his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke:
«Strike and flashing fell the stroke-
Rolled the head-and, gushing, sunk
Back the stained and heaving trunk,
In the dust, which cach deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix for ever.

He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade:
Meekly had he bowed and prayed,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the Prior kneeling,
His heart was weaned from earthly feeling;
His wrathful sire-his paramour-

What were they in such an hour?

No more reproach-no more despair;

No thought but heaven-no word but prayerSave the few which from him broke,

When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke, He claimed to die with eyes unbound,

His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath :
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,

As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;

And with a hushing sound comprest,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,
Beyond the blow that to the block

Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one-what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill-so passing wild?

That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And
every eye is turned thereon ;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek—and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past,

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen :

Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banished from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;
At least the knight's who died that day.
But Parisina's fate lies hid

Like dust beneath the coffin lid :