But Julio gazed on, and never lifted
    Himself to see the broken clouds, that drifted
    One after one, like infant elves at play
    Amid the night-winds, in their lonely way—­
    Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,
    And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deep
    Over their couches of green moss and flowers,
    And solitary fern, and heather bowers.

    The heavy bell toll’d two, and, as it toll’d,
    Julio started, and the fresh-turn’d mould
    He flung into the empty chasm with speed,
    And o’er it dropt the flagstone.  One could read
    That Agathe lay there; but still the girl
    Lay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,
    That from the deep sea-waters had been rent—­
    Like a star fallen from the firmament! 
    He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,
    To westward of the solitary church;
    And he hath clasp’d around the melting waist
    The beautiful, dead girl:  his cheek is press’d
    To hers—­Life warming the cold chill of Death! 
    And over his pale palsy breathing breath
    His eye is sunk upon her—­“Thou must leave
    The worm to waste for love of thee, and grieve
    Without thee, as I may not.  Thou must go,
    My sweet betrothed, with me—­but not below,
    Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,
    But where is light, and life, and one to brood
    Above thee till thou wakest—­Ha!  I fear
    Thou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,
    Where there are none but winds to visit thee,
    And convent fathers, and a choristry
    Of sisters, saying, ’Hush!’—­But I will sing
    Rare songs to thy pure spirit, wandering
    Down on the dews to hear me; I will tune
    The instrument of the ethereal moon,
    And all the choir of stars, to rise and fall
    In harmony and beauty musical.”

    He is away—­and still the sickly lamp
    Is burning next the altar; there’s a damp,
    Thin mould upon the pavement; and, at morn,
    The monks do cross them in their blessed scorn
    And mutter deep anathemas, because
    Of the unholy sacrilege, that was
    Within the sainted chapel,—­for they guess’d,
    By many a vestige sad, how the dark rest
    Of Agathe was broken,—­and anon
    They sought for Julio.  The summer sun
    Arose and and set, with his imperial disc
    Toward the ocean-waters, heaving brisk
    Before the winds,—­but Julio came never: 
    He that was frantic as a foaming river—­
    Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tide
    Of a great tempest, that have fought and died
    Along the forest ramparts, and doth still
    In its death-struggle desperately reel
    Round with the fallen foliage—­he was gone,
    And none knew whither.  Still were chanted on
    Sad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,
    And holy requiems sung for Agathe!