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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=519642" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Marmion: Canto II. - The Convent</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The breeze, which swept away the smoke,<br>Round Norham Castle rolled,<br>When all the loud artillery spoke,<br>With lightning-flash, and thunder-stroke,<br>As Marmion left the hold.<br>It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze,<br>For, far upon Northumbrian seas,<br>It freshly blew, and strong,<br>Where, from high Whitby's cloistered pile,<br>Bound to St. Cuthbert's holy isle,<br>It bore a barque along.<br>Upon the gale she stooped her side,<br>And bounded o'er the swelling tide,<br>As she were dancing home;<br>The merry seamen laughed to see<br>Their gallant ship so lustily<br>Furrow the green sea-foam.<br>Much joyed they in their honoured freight;<br>For, on the deck, in chair of state,<br>The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed,<br>With five fair nuns, the galley graced.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas sweet to see these holy maids,<br>Like birds escaped to greenwood shades,<br>Their first flight from the cage,<br>How timid, and how curious too,<br>For all to them was strange and new,<br>And all the common sights they view,<br>Their wonderment engage.<br>One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,<br>With many a benedicite;<br>One at the rippling surge grew pale,<br>And would for terror pray;<br>Then shrieked, because the sea-dog, nigh,<br>His round black head, and sparkling eye,<br>Reared o'er the foaming spray;<br>And one would still adjust her veil,<br>Disordered by the summer gale,<br>Perchance lest some more worldly eye<br>Her dedicated charms might spy;<br>Perchance, because such action graced<br>Her fair-turned arm and slender waist.<br>Light was each simple bosom there,<br>Save two, who ill might pleasure share -<br>The Abbess and the novice Clare.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Abbess was of noble blood,<br>But early took the veil and hood,<br>Ere upon life she cast a look,<br>Or knew the world that she forsook.<br>Fair too she was, and kind had been<br>As she was fair, but ne'er had seen<br>For her a timid lover sigh,<br>Nor knew the influence of her eye.<br>Love, to her ear, was but a name,<br>Combined with vanity and shame;<br>Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all<br>Bounded within the cloister wall:<br>The deadliest sin her mind could reach<br>Was of monastic rule the breach;<br>And her ambition's highest aim<br>To emulate Saint Hilda's fame.<br>For this she gave her ample dower,<br>To raise the convent's eastern tower;<br>For this, with carving rare and quaint,<br>She decked the chapel of the saint,<br>And gave the relic-shrine of cost,<br>With ivory and gems embossed.<br>The poor her convent's bounty blest,<br>The pilgrim in its halls found rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Black was her garb, her rigid rule<br>Reformed on Benedictine school;<br>Her cheek was pale, her form was spare;<br>Vigils, and penitence austere,<br>Had early quenched the light of youth,<br>But gentle was the dame, in sooth:<br>Though, vain of her religious sway,<br>She loved to see her maids obey;<br>Yet nothing stern was she in cell,<br>And the nuns loved their Abbess well.<br>Sad was this voyage to the dame;<br>Summoned to Lindisfarne, she came,<br>There, with Saint Cuthbert's Abbot old,<br>And Tynemouth's Prioress, to hold<br>A chapter of Saint Benedict,<br>For inquisition stern and strict,<br>On two apostates from the faith,<br>And, if need were, to doom to death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nought say I here of Sister Clare,<br>Save this, that she was young and fair;<br>As yet a novice unprofessed,<br>Lovely and gentle, but distressed.<br>She was betrothed to one now dead,<br>Or worse, who had dishonoured fled.<br>Her kinsmen bade her give her hand<br>To one who loved her for her land;<br>Herself, almost heart-broken now,<br>Was bent to take the vestal vow,<br>And shroud, within Saint Hilda's gloom,<br>Her blasted hopes and withered bloom.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She sate upon the galley's prow,<br>And seemed to mark the waves below;<br>Nay, seemed, so fixed her look and eye,<br>To count them as they glided by.<br>She saw them not-'twas seeming all -<br>Far other scene her thoughts recall -<br>A sun-scorched desert, waste and bare,<br>Nor waves nor breezes murmured there;<br>There saw she, where some careless hand<br>O'er a dead corpse had heaped the sand,<br>To hide it till the jackals come,<br>To tear it from the scanty tomb.<br>See what a woful look was given,<br>As she raised up her eyes to heaven!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lovely, and gentle, and distressed -<br>These charms might tame the fiercest breast;<br>Harpers have sung, and poets told,<br>That he, in fury uncontrolled,<br>The shaggy monarch of the wood,<br>Before a virgin, fair and good,<br>Hath pacified his savage mood.<br>But passions in the human frame<br>Oft put the lion's rage to shame:<br>And jealousy, by dark intrigue,<br>With sordid avarice in league,<br>Had practised with their bowl and knife<br>Against the mourner's harmless life.<br>This crime was charged 'gainst those who lay<br>Prisoned in Cuthbert's islet grey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now the vessel skirts the strand<br>Of mountainous Northumberland;<br>Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,<br>And catch the nuns' delighted eyes.<br>Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay,<br>And Tynemouth's priory and bay;<br>They marked, amid her trees, the hall<br>Of lofty Seaton-Delaval;<br>They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods<br>Rush to the sea through sounding woods;<br>They passed the tower of Widderington,<br>Mother of many a valiant son;<br>At Coquet Isle their beads they tell<br>To the good saint who owned the cell;<br>Then did the Alne attention claim,<br>And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name;<br>And next, they crossed themselves, to hear<br>The whitening breakers sound so near,<br>Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar<br>On Dunstanborough's caverned shore;<br>Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there,<br>King Ida's castle, huge and square,<br>From its tall rock look grimly down,<br>And on the swelling ocean frown;<br>Then from the coast they bore away,<br>And reached the Holy Island's bay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The tide did now its floodmark gain,<br>And girdled in the saint's domain:<br>For, with the flow and ebb, its style<br>Varies from continent to isle;<br>Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day,<br>The pilgrims to the shrine find way;<br>Twice every day, the waves efface<br>Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.<br>As to the port the galley flew,<br>Higher and higher rose to view<br>The castle with its battled walls,<br>The ancient monastery's halls,<br>A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,<br>Placed on the margin of the isle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,<br>With massive arches broad and round,<br>That rose alternate, row and row,<br>On ponderous columns, short and low,<br>Built ere the art was known,<br>By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,<br>The arcades of an alleyed walk<br>To emulate in stone.<br>On the deep walls the heathen Dane<br>Had poured his impious rage in vain;<br>And needful was such strength to these,<br>Exposed to the tempestuous seas,<br>Scourged by the winds' eternal sway,<br>Open to rovers fierce as they,<br>Which could twelve hundred years withstand<br>Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand.<br>Not but that portions of the pile,<br>Rebuilded in a later style,<br>Showed where the spoiler's hand had been;<br>Not hut the wasting sea-breeze keen<br>Had worn the pillar's carving quaint,<br>And mouldered in his niche the saint,<br>And rounded, with consuming power,<br>The pointed angles of each tower;<br>Yet still entire the abbey stood,<br>Like veteran, worn, but unsubdued.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soon as they neared his turrets strong,<br>The maidens raised Saint Hilda's song,<br>And with the sea-wave and the wind,<br>Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined<br>And made harmonious close;<br>Then, answering from the sandy shore,<br>Half-drowned amid the breakers' roar,<br>According chorus rose:<br>Down to the haven of the isle<br>The monks and nuns in order file,<br>From Cuthbert's cloisters grim;<br>Banner, and cross, and relics there,<br>To meet Saint Hilda's maids, they bare;<br>And, as they caught the sounds on air,<br>They echoed back the hymn.<br>The islanders, in joyous mood,<br>Rushed emulously through the flood,<br>To hale the barque to land;<br>Conspicuous by her veil and hood,<br>Signing the cross, the Abbess stood,<br>And blessed them with her hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Suppose we now the welcome said,<br>Suppose the convent banquet made:<br>All through the holy dome,<br>Through cloister, aisle, and gallery,<br>Wherever vestal maid might pry,<br>Nor risk to meet unhallowed eye,<br>The stranger sisters roam;<br>Till fell the evening damp with dew,<br>And the sharp sea-breeze coldly blew,<br>For there e'en summer night is chill.<br>Then, having strayed and gazed their fill,<br>They closed around the fire;<br>And all, in turn, essayed to paint<br>The rival merits of their saint,<br>A theme that ne'er can tire<br>A holy maid; for, be it known,<br>That their saint's honour is their own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Whitby's nuns exulting told,<br>How to their house three barons bold<br>Must menial service do;<br>While horns blow out a note of shame,<br>And monks cry, 'Fye upon your name!<br>In wrath, for loss of silvan game,<br>Saint Hilda's priest ye slew.'<br>'This, on Ascension Day, each year,<br>While labouring on our harbour-pier,<br>Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.'<br>They told, how in their convent cell<br>A Saxon princess once did dwell,<br>The lovely Edelfled.<br>And how, of thousand snakes, each one<br>Was changed into a coil of stone<br>When holy Hilda prayed;<br>Themselves, within their holy bound,<br>Their stony folds had often found.<br>They told, how sea-fowls' pinions fail,<br>As over Whitby's towers they sail,<br>And, sinking down, with flutterings faint,<br>They do their homage to the saint.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor did Saint Cuthbert's daughters fail<br>To vie with these in holy tale;<br>His body's resting-place of old,<br>How oft their patron changed, they told;<br>How, when the rude Dane burned their pile,<br>The monks fled forth from Holy Isle;<br>O'er northern mountain, marsh, and moor,<br>From sea to sea, from shore to shore,<br>Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore.<br>They rested them in fair Melrose;<br>But though alive he loved it well,<br>Not there his relics might repose;<br>For, wondrous tale to tell!<br>In his stone coffin forth he rides,<br>A ponderous barque for river tides,<br>Yet light as gossamer it glides,<br>Downward to Tilmouth cell.<br>Nor long was his abiding there,<br>For southward did the saint repair;<br>Chester-le-Street, and Rippon, saw<br>His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw<br>Hailed him with joy and fear;<br>And, after many wanderings past,<br>He chose his lordly seat at last,<br>Where his cathedral, huge and vast,<br>Looks down upon the Wear:<br>There, deep in Durham's Gothic shade,<br>His relics are in secret laid;<br>But none may know the place,<br>Save of his holiest servants three,<br>Deep sworn to solemn secrecy,<br>Who share that wondrous grace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who may his miracles declare!<br>Even Scotland's dauntless king and heir,<br>Although with them they led<br>Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale,<br>And Lodon's knights, all sheathed in mail,<br>And the bold men of Teviotdale,<br>Before his standard fled.<br>'Twas he, to vindicate his reign,<br>Edged Alfred's falchion on the Dane,<br>And turned the Conqueror back again,<br>When, with his Norman bowyer band,<br>He came to waste Northumberland.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn<br>If, on a rock, by Lindisfarne,<br>Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame<br>The sea-born beads that bear his name:<br>Such tales had Whitby's fishers told,<br>And said they might his shape behold,<br>And hear his anvil sound:<br>A deadened clang-a huge dim form,<br>Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm<br>And night were closing round.<br>But this, as tale of idle fame,<br>The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While round the fire such legends go,<br>Far different was the scene of woe,<br>Where, in a secret aisle beneath,<br>Council was held of life and death.<br>It was more dark and lone, that vault,<br>Than the worse dungeon cell:<br>Old Colwulf built it, for his fault,<br>In penitence to dwell,<br>When he, for cowl and beads, laid down<br>The Saxon battle-axe and crown.<br>This den, which, chilling every sense<br>Of feeling, hearing, sight,<br>Was called the Vault of Penitence,<br>Excluding air and light,<br>Was, by the prelate Sexhelm, made<br>A place of burial for such dead<br>As, having died in mortal sin,<br>Might not be laid the church within.<br>'Twas now a place of punishment;<br>Whence if so loud a shriek were sent,<br>As reached the upper air,<br>The hearers blessed themselves, and said,<br>The spirits of the sinful dead<br>Bemoaned their torments there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But though, in the monastic pile,<br>Did of this penitential aisle<br>Some vague tradition go,<br>Few only, save the Abbot, knew<br>Where the place lay; and still more few<br>Were those, who had from him the clue<br>To that dread vault to go.<br>Victim and executioner<br>Were blindfold when transported there.<br>In low dark rounds the arches hung,<br>From the rude rock the side-walls sprung;<br>The grave-stones, rudely sculptured o'er,<br>Half sunk in earth, by time half wore,<br>Were all the pavement of the floor;<br>The mildew-drops fell one by one,<br>With tinkling plash upon the stone.<br>A cresset, in an iron chain,<br>Which served to light this drear domain,<br>With damp and darkness seemed to strive,<br>As if it scarce might keep alive;<br>And yet it dimly served to show<br>The awful conclave met below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There, met to doom in secrecy,<br>Were placed the heads of convents three;<br>All servants of Saint Benedict,<br>The statutes of whose order strict<br>On iron table lay;<br>In long black dress, on seats of stone,<br>Behind were these three judges shown<br>By the pale cresset's ray,<br>The Abbess of Saint Hilda's, there,<br>Sat for a space with visage bare,<br>Until, to hide her bosom's swell,<br>And tear-drops that for pity fell,<br>She closely drew her veil:<br>Yon shrouded figure, as I guess,<br>By her proud mien and flowing dress,<br>Is Tynemouth's haughty Prioress,<br>And she with awe looks pale:<br>And he, that ancient man, whose sight<br>Has long been quenched by age's night,<br>Upon whose wrinkled brow alone<br>Nor ruth nor mercy's trace is shown,<br>Whose look is hard and stern -<br>Saint Cuthbert's Abbot is his style<br>For sanctity called, through the isle,<br>The saint of Lindisfarne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Before them stood a guilty pair;<br>But, though an equal fate they share,<br>Yet one alone deserves our care.<br>Her sex a page's dress belied;<br>The cloak and doublet, loosely tied,<br>Obscured her charms, but could not hide.<br>Her cap down o'er her face she drew;<br>And, on her doublet breast,<br>She tried to hide the badge of blue,<br>Lord Marmion's falcon crest.<br>But, at the Prioress' command,<br>A monk undid the silken band,<br>That tied her tresses fair,<br>And raised the bonnet from her head,<br>And down her slender form they spread,<br>In ringlets rich and rare.<br>Constance de Beverley they know,<br>Sister professed of Fontevraud,<br>Whom the church numbered with the dead<br>For broken vows, and convent fled.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When thus her face was given to view -<br>Although so pallid was her hue,<br>It did a ghastly contrast bear<br>To those bright ringlets glistering fair -<br>Her look composed, and steady eye,<br>Bespoke a matchless constancy;<br>And there she stood so calm and pale,<br>That, but her breathing did not fail,<br>And motion slight of eye and head,<br>And of her bosom, warranted<br>That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,<br>You might have thought a form of wax,<br>Wrought to the very life, was there;<br>So still she was, so pale, so fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her comrade was a sordid soul,<br>Such as does murder for a meed;<br>Who, but of fear, knows no control,<br>Because his conscience, seared and foul,<br>Feels not the import of his deed;<br>One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires<br>Beyond his own more brute desires.<br>Such tools the Tempter ever needs,<br>To do the savagest of deeds;<br>For them no visioned terrors daunt,<br>Their nights no fancied spectres haunt,<br>One fear with them, of all most base,<br>The fear of death-alone finds place.<br>This wretch was clad in frock and cowl,<br>And shamed not loud to moan and howl,<br>His body on the floor to dash,<br>And crouch, like hound beneath the lash;<br>While his mute partner, standing near,<br>Waited her doom without a tear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek,<br>Well might her paleness terror speak!<br>For there were seen, in that dark wall,<br>Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall;<br>Who enters at such grisly door<br>Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.<br>In each a slender meal was laid,<br>Of roots, of water, and of bread:<br>By each, in Benedictine dress,<br>Two haggard monks stood motionless;<br>Who, holding high a blazing torch,<br>Showed the grim entrance of the porch:<br>Reflecting back the smoky beam,<br>The dark-red walls and arches gleam.<br>Hewn stones and cement were displayed,<br>And building tools in order laid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These executioners were chose,<br>As men who were with mankind foes,<br>And with despite and envy fired,<br>Into the cloister had retired;<br>Or who, in desperate doubt of grace,<br>Strove, by deep penance, to efface<br>Of some foul crime the stain;<br>For, as the vassals of her will,<br>Such men the Church selected still,<br>As either joyed in doing ill,<br>Or thought more grace to gain,<br>If, in her cause, they wrestled down<br>Feelings their nature strove to own.<br>By strange device were they brought there,<br>They knew not how, nor knew not where.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now that blind old Abbot rose,<br>To speak the Chapter's doom<br>On those the wall was to enclose,<br>Alive, within the tomb:<br>But stopped, because that woful maid,<br>Gathering her powers, to speak essayed.<br>Twice she essayed, and twice in vain;<br>Her accents might no utterance gain;<br>Nought but imperfect murmurs slip<br>From her convulsed and quivering lip;<br>'Twixt each attempt all was so still,<br>You seemed to hear a distant rill -<br>'Twas ocean's swells and falls;<br>For though this vault of sin and fear<br>Was to the sounding surge so near,<br>A tempest there you scarce could hear,<br>So massive were the walls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At length, an effort sent apart<br>The blood that curdled to her heart,<br>And light came to her eye,<br>And colour dawned upon her cheek,<br>A hectic and a fluttered streak,<br>Like that left on the Cheviot peak,<br>By autumn's stormy sky;<br>And when her silence broke at length,<br>Still as she spoke she gathered strength,<br>And armed herself to bear.<br>It was a fearful sight to see<br>Such high resolve and constancy,<br>In form so soft and fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I speak not to implore your grace,<br>Well know I, for one minute's space<br>Successless might I sue:<br>Nor do I speak your prayers to gain -<br>For if a death of lingering pain,<br>To cleanse my sins, be penance vain,<br>Vain are your masses too.<br>I listened to a traitor's tale,<br>I left the convent and the veil;<br>For three long years I bowed my pride,<br>A horse-boy in his train to ride;<br>And well my folly's meed he gave,<br>Who forfeited, to be his slave,<br>All here, and all beyond the grave.<br>He saw young Clara's face more fair,<br>He knew her of broad lands the heir,<br>Forgot his vows, his faith forswore,<br>And Constance was beloved no more.<br>'Tis an old tale, and often told;<br>But did my fate and wish agree,<br>Ne'er had been read, in story old,<br>Of maiden true betrayed for gold,<br>That loved, or was avenged, like me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The king approved his favourite's aim;<br>In vain a rival barred his claim,<br>Whose fate with Clare's was plight,<br>For he attaints that rival's fame<br>With treason's charge-and on they came,<br>In mortal lists to fight.<br>Their oaths are said,<br>Their prayers are prayed,<br>Their lances in the rest are laid,<br>They meet in mortal shock;<br>And, hark! the throng, with thundering cry,<br>Shout 'Marmion! Marmion!' to the sky,<br>'De Wilton to the block!'<br>Say ye, who preach Heaven shall decide<br>When in the lists two champions ride,<br>Say, was Heaven's justice here?<br>When, loyal in his love and faith,<br>Wilton found overthrow or death,<br>Beneath a traitor's spear?<br>How false the charge, how true he fell,<br>This guilty packet best can tell.'<br>Then drew a packet from her breast,<br>Paused, gathered voice, and spoke the rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Still was false Marmion's bridal stayed:<br>To Whitby's convent fled the maid,<br>The hated match to shun.<br>'Ho! shifts she thus?' King Henry cried;<br>'Sir Marmion, she shall be thy bride,<br>If she were sworn a nun.'<br>One way remained-the King's command<br>Sent Marmion to the Scottish land:<br>I lingered here, and rescue planned<br>For Clara and for me:<br>This caitiff monk, for gold, did swear,<br>He would to Whitby's shrine repair,<br>And, by his drugs, my rival fair<br>A saint in heaven should be.<br>But ill the dastard kept his oath,<br>Whose cowardice has undone us both.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXX.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And now my tongue the secret tells,<br>Not that remorse my bosom swells,<br>But to assure my soul that none<br>Shall ever wed with Marmion.<br>Had fortune my last hope betrayed,<br>This packet, to the King conveyed,<br>Had given him to the headsman's stroke,<br>Although my heart that instant broke.<br>Now, men of death, work forth your will,<br>For I can suffer, and be still;<br>And come he slow, or come he fast,<br>It is but Death who comes at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet dread me, from my living tomb,<br>Ye vassal slaves of bloody Rome!<br>If Marmion's late remorse should wake,<br>Full soon such vengeance will he take,<br>That you shall wish the fiery Dane<br>Had rather been your guest again.<br>Behind, a darker hour ascends!<br>The altars quake, the crosier bends,<br>The ire of a despotic king<br>Rides forth upon destruction's wing;<br>Then shall these vaults, so strong and deep,<br>Burst open to the sea-winds' sweep;<br>Some traveller then shall find my bones<br>Whitening amid disjointed stones,<br>And, ignorant of priests' cruelty,<br>Marvel such relics here should be.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fixed was her look, and stern her air:<br>Back from her shoulders streamed her hair;<br>The locks, that wont her brow to shade,<br>Stared up erectly from her head;<br>Her figure seemed to rise more high;<br>Her voice, despair's wild energy<br>Had given a tone of prophecy.<br>Appalled the astonished conclave sate:<br>With stupid eyes, the men of fate<br>Gazed on the light inspired form,<br>And listened for the avenging storm;<br>The judges felt the victim's dread;<br>No hand was moved, no word was said,<br>Till thus the Abbot's doom was given,<br>Raising his sightless balls to heaven:-<br>'Sister, let thy sorrows cease;<br>Sinful brother, part in peace!'<br>From that dire dungeon, place of doom,<br>Of execution too, and tomb,<br>Paced forth the judges three,<br>Sorrow it were, and shame, to tell<br>The butcher-work that there befell,<br>When they had glided from the cell<br>Of sin and misery.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A hundred winding steps convey<br>That conclave to the upper day;<br>But, ere they breathed the fresher air,<br>They heard the shriekings of despair,<br>And many a stifled groan:<br>With speed their upward way they take,<br>Such speed as age and fear can make,<br>And crossed themselves for terror's sake,<br>As hurrying, tottering on:<br>Even in the vesper's heavenly tone,<br>They seemed to hear a dying groan,<br>And bade the passing knell to toll<br>For welfare of a parting soul.<br>Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung,<br>Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;<br>To Warkworth cell the echoes rolled,<br>His beads the wakeful hermit told,<br>The Bamborough peasant raised his head,<br>But slept ere half a prayer he said;<br>So far was heard the mighty knell,<br>The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,<br>Spread his broad nostril to the wind,<br>Listed before, aside, behind,<br>Then couched him down beside the hind,<br>And quaked among the mountain fern,<br>To hear that sound so dull and stern.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sir+Walter+Scott">Sir Walter Scott</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=519642" data-title="Marmion: Canto II. - The Convent de Sir Walter Scott" data-description="I.

The breeze, which swept away the smoke,
Round Norham Castle rolled,
When all the loud artillery spoke,
With lightning-flash, and thunder-stroke,
As Marmion left the hold.
It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze,
For, far upon Northumbrian seas,..."></div>
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