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What wondrous art will suffer with eclipse!
What unwon glories are in store for thee!
What fame, outreaching time and temporal shocks,
Would shine upon the letters of thy name
Graven in marble, or the brazen height
Of columns wise with memories of thee!"
"Take me! If I outlived the Patriarchs,
I could but paint those features o'er and o'er :
Lo! that is done." A smile of pity lit
The seraph's features, as he looked to heaven,
With deep inquiry in his tender eyes.

The mandate came. He touched with downy wing
The sufferer lightly on his aching heart;
And gently, as the skylark settles down
Upon the clustered treasures of her nest,
So Carlo softly slid along the prop
Of his tall easel, nestling at the foot

As though he slumbered; and the morning broke
In silver whiteness over Padua.

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THE Abbess was of noble blood,
But early took the veil and hood,
Ere upon life she cast a look,
Or knew the world that she forsook.
Fair too she was, and kind had been
As she was fair, but ne'er had seen
For her a timid lover sigh,
Nor knew the influence of her eye.
Love, to her ear, was but a name,
Combined with vanity and shame;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall:
The deadliest sin her mind could reach
Was of monastic rule the breach;
And her ambition's highest aim
To emulate Saint Hilda's fame.
For this she gave her ample dower
To raise the convent's eastern tower;
For this, with carving rare and quaint,
She decked the chapel of the saint,
And gave the relic-shrine of cost,
With ivory and gems embost.
The poor her convent's bounty blest,
The pilgrim in its halls found rest.

Black was her garb, her rigid rule
Reformed on Benedictine school;
Her cheek was pale, her form was spare ;
Vigils, and penitence austere,
Had early quenched the light of youth,
But gentle was the dame, in sooth;

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While round the fire such legends go,
Far different was the scene of woe,
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.
'T was now a place of punishment;
Whence if so loud a shriek were sent
As reached the upper air,
The hearers blessed themselves, and said,
The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there.

But though, in the monastic pile,
Did of this penitential aisle

Some vague tradition go,
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.

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