III. MY LADY'S VOICE FROM HEAVEN.


I had been sitting by her tomb
In torpor one dark night;
When fitful tremours shook the doom
Of cold lethargic settled gloom,
That weighed upon my sight:

And while I sat, and sickly heaves
Disturbed my spirit's sloth,
A wind came, blown o'er distant sheaves,
That hissing, tore and lashed the leaves
And lashed the undergrowth:

It roared and howled, it raged about
With some determined aim;
And storming up the night, brought out
The moon, that like a happy shout,
Called forth My Lady's name,

In sudden splendour on the stone.
Then, for an instant, I
Snatched and heaped up my past, bestrown
With hopes and kisses, struggling moan,
And pangs: as suddenly,

Oppressed with overwhelming weight,
Down fell the edifice;
When touched, as by the hand of Fate,