Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us - O sigh! Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;

Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily, And make a pale light in your cypress glooms, Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.

LVI

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,
From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
Through bronzèd lyre in tragic order go,
And touch the strings into a mystery;
Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;
For simple Isabel is soon to be

Among the dead: She withers, like a palm
Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.

LVII

O leave the palm to wither by itself;

Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!It may not be those 'Baälites of pelf,

Her brethren, noted the continual shower
From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,
Among her kindred, wondered that such dower
Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside
By one marked out to be a Noble's bride.

440

450

LVIII

And, furthermore, her brethren wondered much
Why she sat drooping by the Basil green,
And why it flourished, as by magic touch;

459

Greatly they wondered what the thing might mean : They could not surely give belief, that such

A very nothing would have power to wean Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay, And even remembrance of her love's delay.

LIX

Therefore they watched a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watched in vain; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,

And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;

And when she left, she hurried back, as swift
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;
And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there
Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.

LX

Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot,
And to examine it in secret place:

The thing was vile with green and livid spot,

And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face:

470

The guerdon of their murder they had got,
And so left Florence in a moment's space,
Never to turn again. Away they went

With blood upon their heads to banishment.

LXI

O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, on some other day,
From isles Lethean, sigh to us

O sigh!
Spirits of grief, sing not your "Well-a-way!"

For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;

Will die a death too lone and incomplete,
Now they have ta'en away her Basil sweet.

480

LXII

Piteous she looked on dead and senseless things,
Asking for her lost Basil amorously;

And with melodious chuckle in the strings

Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,

To ask him where her Basil was; and why 'Twas hid from her: "For cruel 'tis," said she, "To steal my Basil-pot away from me."

490

LXIII

And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
Imploring for her Basil to the last.

No heart was there in Florence but did mourn

In pity of her love, so overcast.

And a sad ditty of this story borne

500

From mouth to mouth through all the country

passed:

Still is the burthen sung-"O cruelty,

To steal my Basil-pot away from me!"

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES

I

°ST. AGNES' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seemed taking flight for heaven, without a death, Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

II

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb oratʼries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

ΤΟ