III.

And, for they were so lonely, Clare
Would to these battlements repair,
And muse upon her sorrows there, 60
  And list the sea-bird’s cry;
Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide
Along the dark-grey bulwarks’ side,
And ever on the heaving tide
  Look down with weary eye. 65
Oft did the cliff, and swelling main,
Recall the thoughts of Whitby’s fane,—­
A home she ne’er might see again;
  For she had laid adown,
So Douglas bade, the hood and veil, 70
And frontlet of the cloister pale,
  And Benedictine gown: 
It were unseemly sight, he said,
A novice out of convent shade.—­
Now her bright locks, with sunny glow, 75
Again adorn’d her brow of snow;
Her mantle rich, whose borders, round,
A deep and fretted broidery bound,
In golden foldings sought the ground;
Of holy ornament, alone 80
Remain’d a cross with ruby stone;
  And often did she look
On that which in her hand she bore,
With velvet bound, and broider’d o’er,
  Her breviary book. 85
In such a place, so lone, so grim,
At dawning pale, or twilight dim,
  It fearful would have been
To meet a form so richly dress’d,
With book in hand, and cross on breast, 90
  And such a woeful mien. 
Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow,
To practise on the gull and crow,
Saw her, at distance, gliding slow,
  And did by Mary swear,—­ 95
Some love-lorn Fay she might have been,
Or, in Romance, some spell-bound Queen;
For ne’er, in work-day world, was seen
A form so witching fair.

IV.

Once walking thus, at evening tide, 100
It chanced a gliding sail she spied,
And, sighing, thought—­’The Abbess, there,
Perchance, does to her home repair;
Her peaceful rule, where Duty, free,
Walks hand in hand with Charity; 105
Where oft Devotion’s tranced glow
Can such a glimpse of heaven bestow,
That the enraptured sisters see
High vision, and deep mystery;
The very form of Hilda fair, 110
Hovering upon the sunny air,
And smiling on her votaries’ prayer. 
O! wherefore, to my duller eye,
Did still the Saint her form deny! 
Was it, that, sear’d by sinful scorn, 115
My heart could neither melt nor burn? 
Or lie my warm affections low,
With him, that taught them first to glow? 
Yet, gentle Abbess, well I knew,
To pay thy kindness grateful due, 120
And well could brook the mild command,
That ruled thy simple maiden band.