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 Agathe 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 Agathe!
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? Agathe 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 Agathe!"
And Julio hath bent him down in speed,
Like one that doeth an unholy deed.
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