No More Learning

The Convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the grey square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go! 390
Hark! the hymn is singing--
The song for the dead below,
Or the living who shortly shall be so!
For a departed being's soul[rc]
The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll:[426]
He is near his mortal goal;
Kneeling at the Friar's knee,
Sad to hear, and piteous to see--
Kneeling on the bare cold ground.
With the block before and the guards around; 400
And the headsman with his bare arm ready,
That the blow may be both swift and steady,
Feels if the axe be sharp and true
Since he set its edge anew:[427]
While the crowd in a speechless circle gather
To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father!

XVI.

It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
Which rose upon that heavy day,
And mock'd it with his steadiest ray; 410
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As his last confession pouring
To the monk, his doom deploring
In penitential holiness,
He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.
That high sun on his head did glisten
As he there did bow and listen, 420
And the rings of chestnut hair
Curled half down his neck so bare;
But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter----
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!
Even the stern stood chilled with awe:
Dark the crime, and just the law--
Yet they shuddered as they saw.

XVII.

The parting prayers are said and over 430
Of that false son, and daring lover!
His beads and sins are all recounted,[rd]
His hours to their last minute mounted;
His mantling cloak before was stripped,
His bright brown locks must now be clipped;
'Tis done--all closely are they shorn;
The vest which till this moment worn--
The scarf which Parisina gave--
Must not adorn him to the grave.
Even that must now be thrown aside, 440
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied;
But no--that last indignity
Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,
In deep disdain were half renewed,
When headsman's hands prepared to bind
Those eyes which would not brook such blind,
As if they dared not look on death.
"No--yours my forfeit blood and breath;
These hands are chained, but let me die 450
At least with an unshackled eye--
Strike:"--and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bowed his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke:
"Strike"--and flashing fell the stroke--
Rolled the head--and, gushing, sunk
Back the stained and heaving trunk,
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver, 460
Convulsed and quick--then fix for ever.

He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bowed and prayed,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the Prior kneeling,
His heart was weaned from earthly feeling;
His wrathful Sire--his Paramour--
What were they in such an hour? 470
No more reproach,--no more despair,--
No thought but Heaven,--no word but prayer--
Save the few which from him broke,
When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke,
He claimed to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath:
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric[428] shiver ran, 480
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;
And, with a hushing sound compressed,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,[re]
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one:--what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill, so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child, 490
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turned thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek--and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past, 500
In mercy wished it were the last.

XIX.

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen:
Her name--as if she ne'er had been--
Was banished from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb--no memory had they; 510
Theirs was unconsecrated clay--
At least the Knight's who died that day.
But Parisina's fate lies hid
Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,
And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful years
Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,
For that dark love she dared to feel: 520
Or if, upon the moment smote,
She died by tortures less remote,
Like him she saw upon the block
With heart that shared the headsman's shock,
In quickened brokenness that came,
In pity o'er her shattered frame,
None knew--and none can ever know:
But whatsoe'er its end below,
Her life began and closed in woe!

XX.

And Azo found another bride, 530
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who withered in the grave;[429]
Or if they were--on his cold eye
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Or noticed with a smothered sigh.
But never tear his cheek descended,
And never smile his brow unbended;
And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought; 540
Those furrows which the burning share
Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there;
Scars of the lacerating mind
Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.