University of Virginia Library

CANTO VIII. SOLEMN WATCH WITHIN THE ABBEY.

I.

Fitzharding, when his steps withdrew
(Hard triumph gained!) from Richard's view,
Resolved, while through the gallery's shade
Indignantly and sad he strayed,
To learn at once his father's fate,
Nor the securer hour await;
And o'er the aisle he bent to see
If there the Monk, his guide, might be.

II.

Changed was the solemn scene below,
Where monks with stillness, to and fro,
Had borne the dead to place of rest,
Or shrived the spirit, while possest
(Though with so transient potency)
Of frail home of mortality.
Now from the aisles the crowd was gone:
By the death-torch, the Watch-monk lone
Stood dimly o'er the blood-stained bier,
Seeming some shadowy shape of Fear!
While that torch strange, a grisly hue
O'er the dead warrior's visage threw.
Now heavy-falling steps around
No more disturbed the distant ground;
The bearers from their toil reposed;
The cloister's distant door was closed;
From chantry-tomb and chapel nigh
Was sunk the soothing minstrelsy:
All in the aisle was hushed in death,
When Clement ventured from beneath.

III.

He ventured on the secret stair
To warn Fitzharding to beware;
For, 'mong the bands of Richard's host,
Who round the Abbey-porches lay,
Short words, o'erheard at whiles and lost,
Proved, that they watched Lancastrian prey.
Their enemies, they said, had found
Refuge within the Abbey-bound.
Church-law with taunt of scorn they named;
Talked of “good sword” and “Churchman tamed.”
Then earnestly he urged the Knight
To rest in gallery that night.

IV.

Fitzharding paused not, ere he said,
Too long had he the torture proved
Of hope and fear for those he loved,
To suffer any weightier dread.
Concealed he would no longer stay,
But search where dead or wounded lay.
Then asked he if the Monk had seen
A lifeless warrior-chief borne by
St. Hugo's tomb at dusk of e'en,
When priest sung in his chantry nigh.
But Clement at such hour had slept,
Worn out with vigils he had kept.
The chantry-monk, who requiem sung,
Dwelt in St. Julian's subject-cell;
And there had duly gone, when rung
That cell's accustomed evening-bell.

V.

Again the Monk Fitzharding warned,
Dangers unseen might not be scorned;
And there were brothers in the aisle
Would willingly his steps beguile,
If a Lancastrian knight they knew;
But, if he still the worst must dare,
A monkish garment he would spare,
Might shade him slightly from their view.
The Baron liked not frock and hood,
As covering for a spirit brave;
But fully spoke his gratitude,
And, farther, did the watchword crave.

VI.

In earnest speech then craved the Knight
The counter-signal for the night.
“‘Peace be on earth!’ shall be your guide,
And shield you through this Abbey wide;
But if, as knight, you rashly show
Your rank,—though cased from top to toe,
You cannot 'scape the secret hate,
That dwells in our divided state.
Duke Richard's soldiers are abroad;
And where, Sir Knight, is your good sword?”

VII.

Fitzharding, as from dream amazed,
On the disarmed scabbard gazed;
And now, of weapon's aid bereft,
(No other means of safety left)
He yielded to a proffered guise;
And o'er his stately harness threw
The Benedictine draperies
Of ample width and sable hue.
He doffed the plumage from his brow,
But kept the casque of steel below;
O'er which a monkish cowl was thrown,
That hid his visage in it's frown.

VIII.

Clement, ere to the aisle he led,
These parting words of warning said:—
“Now mark the way I bid you go,
And step with prudent care and slow,
For warrior's step may ill agree
With cloistered man's tranquillity.
Pass not athwart the nave, I pray,
Though there may lie your shortest way;
For in the cloister-pier, beside,
Darkling, a watch-monk doth abide;
Nor pass the choir before the shrine,
For, there the wonted tapers shine,
And watchers in the gallery wait,
And guard that place, with solemn state;
But by the shrine of Humphrey march,
Then onward, through the eastern arch
That leads behind St. Alban's bier;
Then through our Lady's Porch, and here
Step quietly, like sandalled man,
Or charnel-monk thy gait will scan.
Our Lady's Shrine go thou not nigh;
The chantry of St. Blaize pass by.
The Altar of four-wax lights shun,
And the East turret's lurking stair;
The Abbey's northern porch beware.
Without, Duke Richard's soldiers wait—
Our guard, or—as may be—our fate!”

IX.

“Then turn thee on King Offa's aisle,
Who, from the roof, shall on thee smile;
Pause not, nor look, till thou hast gained
The Transept at the western end,
Where shrined Amphibalus is laid:—
Then, speed thou to the deeper shade.
But if thy steps are watched, then wend
Where Michael and St. Patern bend,
To guard the northern transept's bound;
Within a turret-stair is found,
That leads to thin arched wall, on high,
Where thou, as here, secure may'st lie.
So fare thee well! I bless thy way,
And will assist thee as I may.”
Ere hasty thanks the Knight could pay,
Clement upon the aisle looked out;
No shape appeared of priest, or scout.
He signed Fitzharding swift away.

X.

Long watched the Monk, where, on the aisle,
The Warrior trod in his dark weed;
Ill might such stalk his rank beguile,
Or figure be for monk's received.
He watched him by Duke Humphrey's tomb,
Where, from the roof's light filagree,
Blazed tapers through the vaulted gloom,
While voices sung his obsequy.
He watched him through the eastern arch,
Where once St. Catherine's story shone;—
The Knight has turned on Mary's Porch,—
The monk is to his pallet gone.

XI.

St. Mary's Porch the Knight has turned;
'Twas well the tomb-lights dimly burned;
They showed not even the windows tall,
That graced, in fretted state, the wall;
Nor yet St. Alban's Chapel there,
His arches pointing fine in air,
Of loftiest grace and beauty rare.
Eastward Fitzharding cast his eye,
Beyond St. Mary's portal high,
That showed her in her distant shrine
Of lily and of eglantine;
Beneath appeared a dismal sight—
Her altar, hung with sable hue,
Where yellow tapers ranged to view,
Shed forth a melancholy light.
Fitzharding sighed, who, all too well,
The language of those lights could spell;
And that of the faint strain, that rose,
With voice of soul, from chapel nigh—
The Sequence for the last repose,
While yet the dead unburied lie!
In silent thought awhile he stood,
With folded arms and shading hood,
And deep moan rent his breast;
Then slowly o'er the gloomy ground
He drew, to catch the nearer sound
Of “Rest—eternal Rest!”

XII.

Sudden, from forth a darkened nook
A dreary voice spoke near, “Beware!”
Then paused, and seemed to say, “Prepare!”
It might have come from grave forsook,
So strange, so thrilling was the tone.
He looked the way that warning came,
Low lying waved a dark red flame;
He saw that dusky torch alone,
Until it's lengthening gleam made known,
How thick the new-made graves were strewn
Beyond. He trembled at this sight,
Musing for whom these graves might wait;
What gallant comrades of the fight,
What friend, what kinsman, here this night
Might come unto his last estate!
The grave all still and patient lay,
As if it knew, though long their stay,
They might not cheat it of it's prey.
Sudden, Fitzharding thought, that here
Would rest, perchance, his father's bier!
With horror struck and deep dismay,
He turned him from this scene away.

XIII.

His step called forth that voice unknown;
It muttered in sepulchral tone,
“Beware! the earth is heaped around;
The graves are opened on this ground!”
Sullen and dim a form appeared,
And the low-lying torch it reared,
Showing a face to him unknown;
It reared the torch, and showed it's own.
A form so tall, so spare and gaunt
Might have been drawn to image Want;
And well the ghastly face supplied
The look of one for food had died:
So livid, pale, so grim, so shrunk,
The visage of this charnel-monk!
Ardent and haggard were his eyes,
And full of evil dark surmise;
Yet gleamed, at whiles, all fiery red,
Just where the cowl its darkness shed.
His figure, draped in weed of woe,
Did a bossed symbol grimly show,
Bones and an eyeless head.
This shape of terror, with no name,
(While on their wormy verge he stood)
As home and empire seemed to claim
The graves, o'er porch and chapel strewed.

XIV.

He held the torch before the Knight;
And, whether glance of helmet bright
From forth his veiling hood might stray,
Or that the cowl so baffling lay,
It seemed suspicion to excite,
He claimed the watchword of the night.
And when Fitzharding said his say,
And from the porch had passed away,
That Monk stood on King Offa's aisle,
With folded arms and steps astride,
And watched him with a lowering smile,
As though he muttered, “Ill betide!”
The gilded spurs, too sure, I ween,
Beneath the Knight's dark skirt were seen.

XV.

Now when Fitzharding reached the end,
Where Mercian Offa from the vault
Looked down, and seemed to bid him halt,
He turned a backward glance to send.
The Monk was gone; but, in his stead,
Leaned forward from a pillar's shade,
A gauntlet hand and helmet head;
Another yet behind stood near,
Who in the gloom might scarce appear,
And cautious gesture made.
Far were they from the guard's last torch,
Just where the Abbey's northern porch
And Mary's Ante-chapel met;
Beyond, Duke Richard's guard was set.

XVI.

Abrupt, then in the shade they drew,
As if to shun Fitzharding's view.
The Baron well bethought him then
Of the Monk Clement's charge:—
“Pause not, nor turn to look again,
Till you have gained the marge,
Where the north aisle and transept join.”
He judged this charge important sign,
And, instant, passed upon the way,
Where the dread nave and transept lay.
As o'er that scene a glance he gave,
Where every tomb and lowly grave
And altar-slab and dim shrine near,
Was now a warrior's bleeding bier,
He checked his step, lest suddenly
Some face beloved he there might see.

XVII.

He had been in the front of war,
Nor ever feared the deadly scar;
Had seen his comrades fall beside,
And shrunk not from the battle's tide;
Intent alone the foe to stem,
He felt not for himself nor them;
But now, when zeal, nor passion, bore
Their wonted sway his thronged mind o'er;
When stilly he might see and know
Each written character of woe;
And view, perchance, some well-known face,
All changed and shrunk from living grace;
Unconquerable dread arose,
To meet what Death might thus disclose!
The animated look—the eye,
That had so oft, all smilingly,
Dwelt on his with a kindly joy,—
How might he view, now stern and dim,
Bend not one beam of soul on him;
Nor turn, at sound of step, or voice,
So oft its signal, to rejoice?

XVIII.

Scarce could Fitzharding's limbs sustain
The burden of his shuddering pain;
He stood, and on a pillar leaned,
While some brief moments intervened.
Brief must they be; for, even then,
Behold! far off in Offa's aisle,
With stealthy step, those armoured men,
Whom he well knew for watchful guile.
Mindful then of the turret near,
Pointed by Clement's prudent fear,
He through the northern transept stept,
Where St. Amphibalus long slept.
In passing by that gorgeous shrine,
He to the watch-monks gave the sign—
“Peace be on earth!” He spake no more;
But sought that little turret's door
Deep in the angle, where it lay
And shaded from the shrine's strong ray.

XIX.

He stood, and watched, some little space,
On the sad threshold of the place;—
That circling stair was still in shade,
By thickness of the old wall made.
But, could he gain the gallery,
The shrine-lights through the tracery,
Darting so high a feeble ray,
Would guide him on the narrow way.
Fitzharding sought that narrow stair,
And trod it's gloomy path with care,
Yet, sometimes, 'gainst the narrow bound
Struck his steeled foot, with startling sound;
His harnessed shoulders broad would graze
The strait walls of these secret ways.
Twice round the newel had he pressed,
When his foot found a level rest.
From high poured forth the midnight air,
Through loop-hole of the turret-stair.
He traced not now the second flight,
For, at short distance on the right,
Faint ray amid the darkness streamed,
And through an arch the gallery gleamed.

XX.

Soon as Fitzharding passed the arch,
He stepped with calm and firmer march,
And backward threw his baffling cowl,
And looked and breathed with freer soul.
But now the narrow gallery
Had nigh his venturous footstep stayed;
The pillars' base so close did lie,
Scarce might he pass behind their shade.
That course of pillars still is seen
Along the massy wall,
With rude, misshapen arch between
Each pillar short and small.
It fronted then the shrine and tomb
Of him, who shared St. Alban's doom.

XXI.

Here might awhile Fitzharding wait
Till Richard's scouts their watch abate;
And, from this transept's southern end,
Above the nave itself might wend
And pass above the western door,
Behind the parapet's high breast;
Thence glance the long, long vista o'er,
To farthest shrine of Mary blessed,
Seen through the pointed arches near,
That rose above St. Alban's bier.
Thus far the Knight may range, and view
The death-scene many a heart shall rue,
The battle's prey—the mighty slain
Stretched out, and watched on marble plain.
Whence then that gallery might go
Around on high, or deep below;
Or leading o'er the cloister walk,
Where the unconscious monk may stalk;
Or to the Abbot's secret room,
Where Richard late decreed his doom;
Or to the inmost cell, wrought there;
Or to deep winding fatal stair—
Few living in the Abbey knew.
For, hidden far from searcher's view,
Was many a flight and passage dim
To vaulted hall and chamber grim;
To crypt and sepulchre and shrine;
And prison cells, that undermine
The cloister-walk, and seem to spread
Almost to lowly Ver's old bed.

XXII.

Just where nave, choir, and transept met,
And Death with splendour was beset,
Fitzharding stood and looked below
O'er all the scene of varied woe.
And thus it lay beneath his sight—
The western aisles were stretched in night,
Save the shrined transept's rays
Threw the full splendour of its blaze
'Thwart the choir-steps and 'slant the nave.
There, every altar-tomb and grave,
As that long line of glory fell,
Showed its dead warrior, all too well.
Before those steps three altars stood
Arranged in row—Oswyn's the good,
St. Thomas, and the sad Marie,
Now 'reft of pomp and imagery.
There priests kept solemn watch around
Three knights, in bleeding armour bound.

XXIII.

The silver censer, burning near,
Sent incense o'er each marble bier;
And poursuivants, in tabard-pride,
Stood mute those warriors beside.
No 'scutcheon blazoned high was there;
But tattered banners on the air,
Sad witness of their master's fate,
Now, as mute mourners, seemed to wait.
Rose not the stately canopy,
With crowded lights, o'er hearse on high;
While troops of mourners, watching round,
Might creep to hear the Requiem sound.
Not such the solemn watch held now,
No lofty hearse—no mourners bow;
Nor blaze of tapers high in air;
Nor likeness of the dead was there.
The dead, each in his arms arrayed,
Exposed to many an eye was laid,
Forsaken save by heralds vain,
Nor mourned, but in the death-priests' strain.

XXIV.

By presence of the state-watch due,
The Knight his dead commander knew;
But, who are those on either hand,
Censed and laid out on altars high?
Nobles they seem of Henry's band,
Whose poursuivants are watching by.
Vainly Fitzharding might assay
To read each visage where it lay,
Or spell the armour, crest, or shield;
Their glimmer only was revealed
By the long slanting ray.

XXV.

The farthest aisles and westward nave,
Where only gleamed upon a grave
A watch-torch dim and lone,
Gave solemn contrast to the choir,
Which beamed as with celestial fire,
Like to half-clouded sun.
From Alban's glorious shrine that light
Streamed through the chancel's gloomy night;
For, though the Abbot's prudent care
Had moved each jewel rich and rare,
Brought far, as pilgrim-offering,
By noble knight, or prince, or king,
Yet, trusting to the love and dread,
That blessed Alban's shrine o'erspread,
It's pillars, laid with golden plate,
Fixed in the pavement, that sustained
The crystal canopy of state
And golden bier, firm-set remained;
And specious show, with truth that vied,
And blazed amid the taper's beams,
The pendent lamps and torch-light gleams,
Was left to soothe the Victor's pride.

XXVI.

That rich and lofty canopy,
With ever-burning lights crowned high,
Supported by four golden towers,
Seemed all within as crystal bowers
Branched o'er his coffin laid beneath;
So richly spread each dazzling wreath!
Below the centre arch of three,
That opened to the chapelry,
Were scrolled, in silent eloquence,
Lines from the dread hymn of sequence,
Where late his golden crown had been;
His priests and monks, in band around,
Watched, patient, o'er the honoured scene,
And Abbey-knights in armour frowned.

XXVII.

St. Cuthbert's Chapel had not lent
Its wide screen then to veil the choir,
Where now it bounds the nave's ascent
With the carved niche and Gothic spire:
Nor rose before St. Alban's shrine,
In lofty state, as now is seen,
The altar's more elaborate screen;
Of fairy-filagree each line,
Web-work each canopy and cell,
Where many an imaged saint might dwell:
Light are the flowery knots, that twine
Round slender columns, clustered vine,
That to the fretwork cornice go,
Where flowers amid the foliage blow
And wheaten sheafs and roses spread,
Spell of the Abbot and the King
Who raised—to guard St. Alban's bed—
This rich and glorious offering.

XXVIII.

Not then this beauteous screen appeared
To hide the bier the pilgrim sought,
And cause the object of his thought
To be more tremblingly revered;
But veil of silk, or cloth of gold,
Hung high and broad in sweeping fold,
On days of chief solemnity.
There only this night might you see
A mourning drapery, like a pall,
With ample grace sweep from the wall,
In solemn memory of the dead,
And half conceal the Martyr's bed;
And seem, like evening-cloud, to throw
Its darkness o'er day's gorgeous brow.

XXIX.

Westward, the nave, in deeper night,
Brought little certain to the sight.
Yet, where upon its lengthen'd gloom
Was seen to glare a fixed torch-light,
There lay a corpse upon a tomb,
Or on some altar's marble pride;
And there a monk sat, close beside.
From one the glittering casque was gone,
Whose wounds made known his fate,
And stood, high-plumed, on altar-stone,
Beside the warrior overthrown,
As though it mocked his state.
And many a dead form, from this height,
Seemed semblance but of marble knight
Extended in his sculptured weed,
With ensigns high of daring deed.
Nay, sometimes, side by side were laid
The substance and the mimic shade,
The marble knight and warrior dead:
Now each alike unconscious lay,
And which was corpse 'twere hard to say!

XXX.

There might be seen, too, side by side,
The slayer and the slain.
Those hostile hands, that shed life's tide,
Still crimsoned with the stain
Of either combatant's last blood,
Now powerless lay, as stone, or wood.
Mute now the voice, whose piercing sound
Had sent dismay o'er distant ground,
Whose high command was loved and feared;
Not even its murmur now was heard.

XXXI.

And there, oh, sight of piteous woe!
Lay gallant sire and son below,
Who, hand and heart, for Henry's right
Did, horse by horse, that morning fight.
And there lay son (oh, thrilling view!)
And father, who each other slew.
Forced by the fate of civil strife,
They struck, unknown, each other's life;—
And, as they sunk, no more to rise,
Each turned on each his dying eyes,
Wailed the sad deed, and mixed their last drawn sighs.

XXXII.

By the north pillars of the nave,
Four dedicated altars stood;
Each bore a victim for the grave,
And now was stained with noble blood:
They faced those arches, sharp and tall,
Where Offa and his beauteous queen,
And Edward of the saintly mien,
And mitred Lanfranc still are seen,
Bending from carved capital,
As watching o'er this mortal scene.
Now, listen; for 'tis fearful all—
All, that beneath Fitzharding's eye
Lay, as he watched in gallery.
He saw monks to this spot draw nigh,
And o'er a pallid figure bend,
And search again, if living breath
Might linger in such shape of death;
Then, silently, the limbs extend;
And—by the glare the torches threw
On the gashed face beneath his view,
Upon St. Scytha's altar laid—
Saw them the countenance compose,
O'er the glazed eye the eye-lid close
For ever—ever! in Death's shade!
And, while he marked that awful sight,
It seemed, by thrill of sympathy,
As if cold fingers did alight
Upon his lids, and on them lie.
A horror ran through all his frame;
But this more painful pang o'ercame—
It seemed to him, that his sight now,
While resting on the form below,
Might view his father laid in death!
With frenzied gaze he sought to know
More certainly the face beneath—
In vain! The torch's wavering glare
To gallery high, through depth of air,
Showed but a wan, dead visage there.

XXXIII.

In very ecstasy of dread
He turned away his straining eyes;
When, near him, through the gallery's shade,
Where faint the altar-beams arise,
A face—the phantom of his fear—
It seemed his father's face were here.
A something like a helmet gleamed,
Figure or substance none there seemed
Amid those shadows deep;
Sad was the look, and ashy pale,
As it would speak some dreadful tale,
Yet must dread secret keep.
Was this a face traced on the eye
From the brain's fiery ecstasy?
A vision sent to warn him, now,
That his dead father lay below?
A trace of soul—a look alone—
A likeness, but as wrought in stone—
So fixed, so absent, and so wan,
Was all that met Fitzharding's sight,
In glimpse, through shadows of the night;
When soft the requiem from afar,
Breathed blessedness upon the air,
And at the sound it seemed to fade,
And vanish in the distant shade.

XXXIV.

Long gazed the Knight where it had been.
Such look of woe he once had seen
Dwelling upon his father's mien.
Long gazed he on the dusky space;
Then drew the cowl upon his face,
And closer folded his dark weed,
And strove that phantasie to read.
Then, bending o'er that gallery,
He sought, once more, the face to see,
So wan in death, below
Features came faintly to his eyes;
But memory, more than sight, supplies
His father's reverend brow.

XXXV.

To end, at once, his torturing dread,
He straight resolved to quit the shade;
When, lo! from forth King Offa's aisle,
With look and step of cautious guile,
He marked two armoured men draw near,
And rest them by that warrior's bier.
So frowned the helmets he had seen
From shade of that aisle's pillar lean;
So bloomed the white-thorn for their crest;
So gleamed the badge upon their breast.
He knew them for the enemy,
And guessed they meant him treachery:
But, wherefore by that bier stood they?
Was it a Yorkist there that lay?

XXXVI.

They bent, and gazed some little space
Upon the warrior's deathy face.
Fitzharding watched if they might show
Gesture of triumph, or of woe.
Steadfast they stood with bended head,
Nor speech, nor gesture ventured.
Then did the Baron surely know
The warrior had not been their foe.
A Yorkist thus, it seemed, lay here;
And, losing his most pressing fear,
He judged it prudent now to stay,
Till passed Duke Richard's scouts away.
And oft he marked them watch around,
And draw within the shaded ground.

XXXVII.

In solemn memory of the dead
Now from the choir the low notes spread
Of midnight dirge and requiem;
And to Fitzharding might they seem
As hymn of some angelic band,
Who on those honoured towers might stand
To guide the spirit from below,
And soothe with hope the mourner's woe.
But, hark! a full and deeper sound
Now answers from the cloister's bound!
Soon as that mournful chaunt was heard,
A gloom o'er all the choir appeared;
While slowly o'er the high shrine fell
The foldings of the funeral veil,
Placed for the warriors' obsequy,
And dropped, at midnight Dirige!

XXXVIII.

Murmuring far, where vaults unclose,
The melancholy strain arose.
The gallery where Fitzharding stood
Fronted that cloister's northern door:
Not one of heavy carved wood,
With scroll ill-fancied covered o'er;
But that most richly carved and light,
With slender stems and foliage dight,
As 'broidered with true leaf and flower,
And traced with Gothic pointings tall,
And canopied with fretwork small.
Issuing beneath this mitred-arch,
The fathers held their solemn march;
Where the long vista-walk withdrew,
Their taper lights gave them to view,
And played upon the vaulted roof,
And showed each fretted line aloof;
There stood the tabernacled Saint,
Blessing the porch. Each corbeil quaint
With it's carved visage, looking down
On all, who passed the arch below,
With smile fantastic, or with frown,
From under helmed, or mitred brow,—
Was graved in light and shade so strong,
Where the gleam waving passed along,
That, as the fleeting shadows roved,
You would have thought the features moved.

XXXIX.

The fathers came with solemn dirge
And midnight chauntings for the dead;
And, as they on the aisle emerge,
Sudden their lifted tapers shed
Long gleams upon each altar-bier,
And showed the warrior resting near.
Each monk, as to the choir he passed,
A glance on the dead soldier cast.
How various was the countenance,
Thus lighted by the taper's glance!
But, oh! that words each line might trace
Of that appealing look of grace,
(But words may not that glimpse define,)
Which beamed from many a passing eye
Of the cowled throng then crowding by—
The look, that would to Heaven resign
Each object of its sympathy!

XL.

While the choir-steps the train ascend,
The silver censers steam on high;
On them with frankincense attend
The Prior and Sub-Prior nigh.
(The aged Abbot stood not by.)
They paused upon the marble bound,
Where now St. Cuthbert's screen is found,
And, ranging in half-circle round,
O'er princely Somerset laid low,
Their hundred lights, raised high, appear
A curve of flame, wide round the bier;
And they, to organ's solemn flow,
Sang Dirige and Placebo.
Whene'er their mourning voices fell,
Stern spoke above the sudden knell,
And then the farthest choir's reply
Came murmuring, till, with finest swell,
The loud notes filled the vaults on high,
With grand and mournful harmony;
And these the words that hymned by.

XLI.

XLII.

While rose this chorus soft and slow,
The Knight, in trance of deepest woe,
Listened till all was still below.
And long, it seemed, that pious strain
Lingered below each vaulted roof,
And died, in murmurs far aloof,
Lulling the first keen sense of pain.
Silent, the watching Warrior grieved;
Tears dimmed his manly eye,
While the close corslet frequent heaved
With many a deep-drawn sigh.