With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,
As if such but disturbed the expiring man,

Nor seem'd to know his life but then began,
That life of Immortality, secure

To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

1130

XX.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew, 1135 And dull the film along his dim eye grew ;

His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head droop'd o'er

The weak yet still untiring knee that bore;
He press'd the hand he held upon his heart-
It beats no more, but Kaled will not part
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,
For that faint throb which answers not again.
"It beats!"—Away, thou dreamer! he is
It once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

XXI.

gone

1140

He gazed, as if not yet had pass'd away

The haughty spirit of that humble clay;

And those around have roused him from his trance,

But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;

F

1145

And when in raising him from where he bore
Within his arms the form that felt no more,

1150

He saw the head his breast would still sustain,
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;

He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear

The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,

But strove to stand and gaze, but reel'd and fell,
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.
Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneath
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe!
That trying moment hath at once reveal'd
The secret long and yet but half-conceal'd;
In baring to revive that lifeless breast,

Its grief seem'd ended, but the sex confest;
And life return'd, and Kaled felt no shame-
What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

1155

1160

XXII.

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,

But where he died his grave was dug as deep;

Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,

1165

Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the mound; And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief,

Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief.

1170

Vain was all question ask'd her of the past,
And vain e'en menace-silent to the last;

She told nor whence, nor why she left behind

Her all for one who seem'd but little kind.

Why did she love him? Curious fool!-be still- 1175
Is human love the growth of human will?

To her he might be gentleness; the stern
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,

And when they love, your smilers guess not how
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.
They were not common links, that form'd the chain
That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain;
But that wild tale she brook'd not to unfold,

And seal'd is now each lip that could have told.

1180

XXIII.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,

1185

Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,

They found the scatter'd dints of many a scar,
Which were not planted there in recent war;

Where'er had pass'd his summer years of life,

It seems they vanish'd in a land of strife;

But all unknown his glory or his guilt,

These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,

1190

And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,

Return'd no more-that night appear'd his last.

XXIV.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale)

A Serf that cross'd the intervening vale,

When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,
And nearly veil'd in mist her waning horn;

1195

A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,

And hew the bough that bought his children's food,
Pass'd by the river that divides the plain

1201

Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain:

He heard a tramp-a horse and horseman broke

From out the wood-before him was a cloak

Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,

1205

Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.

Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,

And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watch'd the stranger's course,
Who reach'd the river, bounded from his horse,

And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,

Heaved up the bank, and dash'd it from the shore,

1210

Then paused, and look'd, and turn'd, and seem'd to watch,

And still another hurried glance would snatch,

And follow with his step the stream that flow'd,
As if even yet too much its surface show'd:
At once he started, stoop'd, around him strown
The winter floods had scatter'd heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather'd there,
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean;
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter'd starlike on the vest,
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk :
It rose again but indistinct to view,

And left the waters of a purple hue,

1215

1220

1225

Then deeply disappear'd: the horseman gazed

Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised;

1230

Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurr'd him into panting speed.
His face was mask'd-the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.

1235