And there they sat till dawning light,
  Nor ever stirred to awe.  “To-night,
The master hath a noble mood,” they said. 
  But on a sudden ceased the sound: 
  Like ghosts the people gathered round,
And on the keys they found his fallen head. 
  The silent organ had received
  The master’s broken heart relieved,
    And he was white and dead.

THE MONK

I

In Nino’s chamber not a sound intrudes
  Upon the midnight’s tingling silentness,
Where Nino sits before his book and broods,
  Thin and brow-burdened with some fine distress,
Some gloom that hangs about his mournful moods
  His weary bearing and neglected dress: 
So sad he sits, nor ever turns a leaf—­
Sorrow’s pale miser o’er his hoard of grief.

II

Young Nino and Leonora, they had met
  Once at a revel by some lover’s chance,
And they were young with hearts already set
  To tender thoughts, attuned to romance;
Wherefore it seemed they never could forget
  That winning touch, that one bewildering glance: 
But found at last a shelter safe and sweet,
Where trembling hearts and longing hands might meet.

III

Ah, sweet their dreams, and sweet, the life they led
  With that great love that was their bosoms’ all,
Yet ever shadowed by some circling dread
  It gloomed at moments deep and tragical,
And so for many a month they seemed to tread
  With fluttering hearts, whatever might befall,
Half glad, half sad, their sweet and secret way
To the soft tune of some old lover’s lay.

IV

But she is gone, alas he knows not where,
  Or how his life that tender gift should lose: 
Indeed his love was ever full of care,
  The hasty joys and griefs of him who woos,
Where sweet success is neighbour to despair,
  With stolen looks and dangerous interviews: 
But one long week she came not, nor the next,
And so he wandered here and there perplext;

V

Nor evermore she came.  Full many days
  He sought her at their trysts, devised deep schemes
To lure her back, and fell on subtle ways
  To win some word of her; but all his dreams
Vanished like smoke, and then in sore amaze
  From town to town, as one that crazed seems,
He wandered, following in unhappy quest
Uncertain clues that ended like the rest.

VI

And now this midnight, as he sits forlorn,
  The printed page for him no meaning bears;
With every word some torturing dream is born;
  And every thought is like a step that scares
Old memories up to make him weep and mourn,
  He cannot turn but from their latchless lairs,
The weary shadows of his lost delight. 
Rise up like dusk birds through the lonely night.