XXXIV.

Why follow here that grim old chronicle

Which counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood? Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell,

Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood,
Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell,

With a sad love, remembering when he stood
Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart,
Of all her holy dreams the holiest part.

XXXV.

His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did,
(So goes the tale,) beneath the altar there
In the high church the stiffening corpse he hid,
And then, to 'scape that suffocating air,
Like a scared ghoule out of the porch he slid;
But his strained eyes saw bloodspots everywhere,
And ghastly faces thrust themselves between
His soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien.

XXXVI.

His heart went out within him, like a spark
Dropt in the sea; wherever he made bold
To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark,
Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish gold
Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy dark
To spread a glory, and a thousandfold

More strangely pale and beautiful she grew :
Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through:

XXXVII.

Or visions of past days,

mother's a

eyes

That smiled down on the fair boy at her knee, Whose happy upturned face to hers replies,

He saw sometimes; or Margaret mournfully Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who tries

To crush belief that does love injury;

Then she would wring her hands, but soon again
Love's patience glimmered out through cloudy pain.

XXXVIII.

Meanwhile he dared not go and steal away
The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin;
He had not feared the life, but that dull clay,

Those open eyes that showed the death within,
Would surely stare him mad; yet all the day

A dreadful impulse, whence his will could win No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile.

XXXIX.

Now, on the second day, there was to be

A festival in church: from far and near

Came flocking in the sun-burnt peasantry,

And knights and dames with stately antique cheer, Blazing with pomp, as if all faërie

Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were, The illuminated marge of some old book,

While we were gazing, life and motion took.

XL.

When all were entered, and the roving eyes
Of all were staid, some upon faces bright,
Some on the priests, some on the traceries
That decked the slumber of a marble knight,

And all the rustlings over that arise

From recognizing tokens of delight,

When friendly glances meet, then silent ease
Spread o'er the multitude by slow degrees.

XLI.

Then swelled the organ: up through choir and nave

The music trembled with an inward thrill

Of bliss at its own grandeur: wave on wave
Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until

The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave,
Then, poising for a moment, it stood still,
And sank and rose again, to burst in spray
That wandered into silence far away.

XLII.

Like to a mighty heart the music seemed,
That yearns with melodies it cannot speak,
Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed,
In the agony of effort it doth break,

Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamed
And wantoned in its might, as when a lake,
Long pent among the mountains, bursts its walls
And in one crowding gush leaps forth and falls.

XLIII.

Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air,

As the huge bass kept gathering heavily,

Like thunder when it rouses in its lair,

And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky:

It grew up like a darkness everywhere,

Filling the vast cathedral; - suddenly,

From the dense mass a boy's clear treble broke

Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke.