Fix’d was her look, and stern her air:  585
Back from her shoulders stream’d her hair;
The locks, that wont her brow to shade,
Stared up erectly from her head;
Her figure seem’d to rise more high;
Her voice, despair’s wild energy 590
Had given a tone of prophecy. 
Appall’d the astonish’d conclave sate;
With stupid eyes, the men of fate
Gazed on the light inspired form,
And listen’d for the avenging storm; 595
The judges felt the victim’s dread;
No hand was moved, no word was said,
Till thus the Abbot’s doom was given,
Raising his sightless balls to heaven:—­
’Sister, let thy sorrows cease; 600
Sinful brother, part in peace!’
  From that dire dungeon, place of doom,
  Of execution too, and tomb,
    Paced forth the judges three;
  Sorrow it were, and shame, to tell 605
  The butcher-work that there befell,
  When they had glided from the cell
    Of sin and misery.

XXXIII.

An hundred winding steps convey
That conclave to the upper day; 610
But, ere they breathed the fresher air,
They heard the shriekings of despair,
  And many a stifled groan: 
With speed their upward way they take,
(Such speed as age and fear can make,) 615
And cross’d themselves for terror’s sake,
  As hurrying, tottering on,
Even in the vesper’s heavenly tone,
They seem’d to hear a dying groan,
And bade the passing knell to toll 620
For welfare of a parting soul. 
Slow o’er the midnight wave it swung,
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;
To Warkworth cell the echoes roll’d,
His beads the wakeful hermit told, 625
The Bamborough peasant raised his head,
But slept ere half a prayer he said;
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostril to the wind, 630
Listed before, aside, behind,
Then couch’d him down beside the hind,
And quaked among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound, so dull and stern.

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD.

To William Erskine, Esq.

Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

Like April morning clouds, that pass,
With varying shadow, o’er the grass,
And imitate, on field and furrow,
Life’s chequer’d scene of joy and sorrow;
Like streamlet of the mountain north, 5
Now in a torrent racing forth,
Now winding slow its silver train,
And almost slumbering on the plain;
Like breezes of the autumn day,
Whose voice inconstant dies away, 10
And ever swells again as fast,