Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare. 
The blood in his translucent veins
Beat, not like animal life, but love 825
Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
When life had failed, and all its pains: 
And sudden sleep would seize him oft
Like death, so calm, but that a tear,
His pointed eyelashes between, 830
Would gather in the light serene
Of smiles, whose lustre bright and soft
Beneath lay undulating there. 
His breath was like inconstant flame,
As eagerly it went and came; 835
And I hung o’er him in his sleep,
Till, like an image in the lake
Which rains disturb, my tears would break
The shadow of that slumber deep: 
Then he would bid me not to weep, 840
And say, with flattery false, yet sweet,
That death and he could never meet,
If I would never part with him. 
And so we loved, and did unite
All that in us was yet divided:  845
For when he said, that many a rite,
By men to bind but once provided,
Could not be shared by him and me,
Or they would kill him in their glee,
I shuddered, and then laughing said—­ 850
’We will have rites our faith to bind,
But our church shall be the starry night,
Our altar the grassy earth outspread,
And our priest the muttering wind.’

’Twas sunset as I spoke:  one star 855
Had scarce burst forth, when from afar
The ministers of misrule sent,
Seized upon Lionel, and bore
His chained limbs to a dreary tower,
In the midst of a city vast and wide. 860
For he, they said, from his mind had bent
Against their gods keen blasphemy,
For which, though his soul must roasted be
In hell’s red lakes immortally,
Yet even on earth must he abide 865
The vengeance of their slaves:  a trial,
I think, men call it.  What avail
Are prayers and tears, which chase denial
From the fierce savage, nursed in hate? 
What the knit soul that pleading and pale 870
Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late
It painted with its own delight? 
We were divided.  As I could,
I stilled the tingling of my blood,
And followed him in their despite, 875
As a widow follows, pale and wild,
The murderers and corse of her only child;
And when we came to the prison door
And I prayed to share his dungeon floor
With prayers which rarely have been spurned, 880
And when men drove me forth and I
Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,
A farewell look of love he turned,
Half calming me; then gazed awhile,