XX.

Before them stood a guilty pair;

But, though an equal fate they share,

Yet one alone deserves our care.
Her sex a page's dress belied;

The cloak and doublet, loosely tied,

Obscured her charms, but could not hide.

Her cap down o'er her face she drew;
And, on her doublet breast,

She tried to hide the badge of blue,
Lord Marmion's falcon crest.

But, at the Prioress' command,

A Monk undid the silken band,

That tied her tresses fair,

And raised the bonnet from her head, And down her slender form they spread,

In ringlets rich and rare.

Constance de Beverley they know,

Sister professed of Fontevraud,

Whom the church numbered with the dead,

For broken vows, and convent fled.

XXI.

When thus her face was given to view,
(Although so pallid was her hue,
It did a ghastly contrast bear,

To those bright ringlets glistering fair,)
Her look composed, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy;

And there she stood so calm and pale,
That, but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted,

That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax,
Wrought to the very life, was there ;
So still she was, so pale, so fair.

XXII.

Her comrade was a sordid soul,

Such as does murther for a meed;
Who, but of fear, knows no controul,
Because his conscience, seared and foul,
Feels not the import of his deed ;
One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires
Beyond his own more brute desires.
Such tools the tempter ever needs,
To do the savagest of deeds;

For them, no visioned terrors daunt,
Their nights no fancied spectres haunt ;
One fear with them, of all most base,
The fear of death,-alone finds place.
This wretch was clad in frock and cowl,
And shamed not loud to moan and howl,
His body on the floor to dash,

And crouch, like hound beneath the lash;
While his mute partner, standing near,
Waited her doom without a tear.

XXII.

Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek,
Well might her paleness terror speak!

For there were seen, in that dark wall,
Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall.
Who enters at such griesly door,
Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.
In each a slender meal was laid,

Of roots, of water, and of bread :
By each, in Benedictine dress,

Two haggard monks stood motionless;
Who, holding high a blazing torch,
Shewed the grim entrance of the porch :
Reflecting back the smoky beam,

The dark-red walls and arches gleam. Hewn stones and cement were displayed,

And building tools in order laid.

XXIII.

These executioners were chose,

As men who were with mankind foes,

And, with despite and envy fired,
Into the cloister had retired;

Or who, in desperate doubt of grace,
Strove, by deep penance, to efface

Of some foul crime the stain;

For, as the vassals of her will,
Such men the church selected still,
As either joyed in doing ill,

Or thought more grace to gain,
If, in her cause, they wrestled down
Feelings their nature strove to own.

By strange device were they brought there, They knew not how, and knew not where.

XXV.

And now that blind old Abbot rose,

To speak the Chapter's doom, On those the wall was to inclose, Alive, within the tomb;