The Death-Wake | Page 6

with sadness and a sigh!
Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,
A dreamer!--"Is the sister ladye
gone?"
He started at the silence of the air
That slumber'd over
him--she is not there.
And either slept not through the live-long night,
Or slept in fitful
trances, with a bright,
Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they rose

In sorrow from the pallet of repose;
For the dark thought of their sad
destiny
Came o'er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,
That was to
rend their fortunes; and at eve
They met again, but, silent, took their
leave,
As they did yesterday: another night,
And neither spake
awhile--A pure delight
Had chasten'd love's first blushes: silently

Gazed Julio on the gentle Agathè--
At length, "Fair Nun!"--She
started, and held fast
Her bright hand on her lip--"the past, the past,

And the pale future! There be some that lie
Under those marble
urns--I know not why,
But I were better in that only calm,
Than be
as I have been, perhaps, and am.
The past!--ay! it hath perish'd; never,
never,
Would I recall it to be blest for ever:
The future it must
come--I have a vow"--
And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow.

"True, true, I have a vow. Is not the moon
Abroad, fair
Nun?"--"Indeed! so very soon?"
Said Agathè, and "I must then
away."--
"Stay, love! 'tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!"
But she was
gone:--yet they met many a time
In the lone chapel, after vesper
chime--
They met in love and fear.
One weary day,
And Julio saw not his loved Agathè;
She was not in
the choir of sisterhood

That sang the evening anthem, and he stood

Like one that listen'd breathlessly awhile;
But stranger voices chanted

through the aisle.
She was not there; and, after all were gone,
He
linger'd: the stars came--he linger'd on,
Like a dark fun'ral image on
the tomb
Of a lost hope. He felt a world of gloom
Upon his heart--a
solitude--a chill.
The pale morn rose, and still, he linger'd still.
And
the next vesper toll'd; nor yet, nor yet--
"Can Agathè be faithless, and
forget?"
It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,
"Poor Julio! thy Agathè is
dead,"
And started. He had loiter'd in the train
That bore her to the
grave: he saw her lain
In the cold earth, and heard a requiem
Sung
over her--To him it was a dream!
A marble stone stood by the
sepulchre;
He look'd, and saw, and started--she was there!
And
Agathè had died; she that was bright--
She that was in her beauty! a
cold blight
Fell over the young blossom of her brow.
And the
life-blood grew chill--She is not, now.
She died, like zephyr falling amid flowers!
Like to a star within the
twilight hours
Of morning--and she was not! Some have thought

The Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught,
That stole into her heart,
and sadly rent
The fine chords of that holy instrument,
Until its
music falter'd fast away,
And she--she died,--the lovely Agathè!
Again, and through the arras of the gloom
Are the pale breezes
moaning: by her tomb
Bends Julio, like a phantom, and his eye
Is
fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lie
At ebb within the sea. Oh! he
is wan,
As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,
And stars unseen
for paleness; it is cast,
As foliage in the raving of the blast,
All his
fair bloom of thoughts! Is the moon chill,
That in the dark clouds she
is mantled still?
And over its proud arch hath Heaven flung
A scarf
of darkness? Agathè was young!

And there should be the virgin silver
there,
The snow-white fringes delicately fair!
He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,
And over him a lonely
lanthorn stands
On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall
Of light

upon a marble pedestal,
Whereon is chisel'd rudely, the essay
Of
untaught tool, "Hic jacet Agathè!"
And Julio hath bent him down in
speed,
Like one that doeth an unholy deed.
There is a flagstone lieth heavily
Over the ladye's grave; I wist of
three
That bore it, of a blessed verity!
But he hath lifted it in his
pure madness,
As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,
And
from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp,
And hung it by the marble
flagstone damp.
And he is flinging the dark, chilly mould
Over the gorgeous
pavement: 'tis a cold,
Sad grave, and there is many a relic there
Of
chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,
Fell smouldering away; and
he would dash
His mattock through them, with a cursed clash,
That
made the lone aisle echo. But anon
He fell upon a skull,--a haggard
one,
With its teeth set, and the great orbless eye
Revolving darkness,
like eternity--
And in his hand he held it, till it grew
To have the
fleshy features and the hue
Of life. He gazed, and gazed, and it
became
Like to his Agathè--all, all the same!
He drew it
nearer,--the cold, bony thing!--
To kiss the worm-wet lips. "Ay! let
me cling--
Cling to thee now, for ever!" but a breath
Of rank
corruption from its jaws of death
Went to his nostrils, and he madly
laugh'd,
And dash'd it over on the altar shaft,
Which the new risen
moon, in her gray light,
Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!