Before their eyes the wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day;
His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his Book of Might,
A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee :
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face:
They trusted his soul had gotten grace.

Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,

And neither known remorse or awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he owned;
His breath came thick, his head swam round,
When this strange scene of death he saw,
Bewildered and unnerved he stood,

And the priest prayed fervently and loud;
With eyes averted prayed he;

He might not endure the sight to see,

Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

And when the priest his death-prayer had prayed,

Thus unto Deloraine he said :—

"Now, speed thee what thou hast to do,

Or warrior, we may dearly rue ;

For those thou mayest not look upon,
Are gathering fast round the yawning stone !"
Then Deloraine, in terror, took

From the cold hand, the mighty Book,

With iron clasped, and with iron bound:
He thought as he took it the dead man frowned:
But the glare of the sepulchral light,
Perchance had dazzled the warrior's sight.

When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb,

The night returned in double gloom;

For the moon had gone down and the stars were few ;
And, as the knight and the priest withdrew,
With wavering steps and dizzy brain,

They hardly might the postern gain.

'Tis said, as through the aisles they passed,
They heard strange noises on the blast;
And through the cloister-galleries small,

Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran,
And voices unlike the voice of man;
As if the fiends kept holiday,

Because these spells were brought to day.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;

Is

say the tale as 'twas said to me.

THE TRIAL OF CONSTANCE.

While round the fire such legends go,
Far different was the scene of wo,
Where, in a secret aisle beneath,
Council was held of life and death.

It was more dark and lone that vault,
Than the worst dungeon cell;

Old Colwulf built it for his fault

In penitence to dwell,

When he, for cowl and beads, laid down,
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.
This den, which, chilling every sense
Of feeling, hearing, sight,
Was called the vault of Penitence,
Excluding air and light,

Was, by the prelate Sexhelm, made
A place of burial, for such dead
As, having died in mortal sin,
Might not be laid the church within.
'Twas now a place of punishment;
Whence if so loud a shriek was sent,
As reached the upper air,

The hearers blessed themselves, and said,
The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there.

Few only, save the abbot, knew

Where the place lay; and still more few Were those, who had from him the clew, To that dread vault to go.

Victim and executioner

Were blindfold when transported there.
In low dark rounds the arches hung,
From the rude rock, the side walls sprung,
The grave-stones rudely sculptured o'er,
Half sunk in earth, by time half wore,
Were all the pavement of the floor;
The mildew drops fell one by one,
With tinkling flash, upon the stone.
A cresset, in an iron chain,

Which served to light this drear domain,
With damp and darkness seemed to strive,
As if it scarce might keep alive;

And yet it dimly served to show

The awful conclave met below.

There met to doom in secrecy,

Were placed the heads of convents three,
All servants of Saint Benedict,
The statutes of whose order strict.
On iron table lay;

In long black dress, on seats of stone,
Behind were these three judges shown,
By the pale cresset's ray:

The abbess of Saint Hilda's, there,
Sat for a space with visage bare,
Until, to hide her bosom's swell,

And tear drops that for pity fell,

She closely drew her veil.
Yon shrouded figure, as I guess,
By her proud mein, and flowing dress,
Is Tynemouth's haughty prioress;
And she with awe looks pale:

And he, that ancient man, whose sight
Has long been quenched by age's night,
Upon whose wrinkled brow alone,
Nor ruth, nor mercy's trace is shown,
Whose look is hard and stern;
Saint Cuthbert's abbot is his style;
For sanctity called, through the isle,
The saint of Lindisfarn.

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