ed from earthly feeling;
His wrathful Sire--his Paramour--
What were they in such an hour? 470
No more reproach,--no more despair,--
No thought but Heaven,--no word but prayer--
Save the few which from him broke,
When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke,
He claimed to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath:
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric[428] shiver ran, 480
As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;
And, with a hushing sound compressed,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,[re]
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one:--what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill, so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child, 490
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turned thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek--and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past, 500
In mercy wished it were the last.

XIX.

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen:
Her name--as if she ne'er had been--
Was banished from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb--no memory had they; 510
Theirs was unconsecrated clay--
At least the Knight's who died that day.
But Parisina's fate lies hid
Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,
And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful years
Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,
For that dark love she dared to feel: 520
Or if, upon the moment smote,
She died by tortures less remote,