University of Virginia Library

IV.

A sound disturbed her solitude—
High chanting from the chapelry;
Like wailings from a gloomy wood
When echoed by a stormy sky,
The distant swell of cloister strain
And matin hymn came o'er her brain,
And roused to life her slumbering pain;
It was her dirge—that morning song,
And slowly rolled the notes along
The cypress groves—the vaults—the cells—
Like murder's midnight groan which tells
The fearful deed most fearfully;
And there the lovely Inez lay
In suffering's last extremity,
While not a solitary ray
Of light relieved the heart-felt gloom
That palled her spirit in the tomb.
It was a mockery of her woe—
The mass of hell yelled out below—
That pæan, like a death-doom sent
Through farthest vault—through deepest cell,
To agonize the punishment
Of the fair one Heaven loved so well.
But oh, no fiend with things can cope
Whom God hath left to their own will—
Giv'n o'er beyond all reach of hope,
At hate's hell-cup to drink their fill;
The deadliest demon, banned the most,
May fill the archangel's holiest throne
Ere mortal once—forever lost,
Can for his damning deeds atone.
The light of heaven may beam o'er hell
Dimly and touch the apostate there;
But man, abandoned, bids farewell
To hope, and weds his own despair.