she with lips all cold and white,
Struggling to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp and cold,
"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh;
Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white
As she breathed the husky whisper: "Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton--every word pierced her young heart
Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart,--
"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right;
Now I'm old I will not falter,--curfew, it must ring to-night."

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow.
As within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh:
"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
In an undertone she murmured, "Curfew must not ring to-night."

With quick step she bounded forward, sprung within the old church door,
Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before;
Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow
Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro,--
As she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,
Up and up,--her white lips saying: "Curfew must not ring to-night."

She has reached the topmost ladder; o'er her hangs the great, dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging--'tis the hour of curfew now,
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! flash her eyes with sudden light,
As she springs and grasps it firmly--"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

Out she swung--far out; the city seemed a speck of light below,
There 'twixt heaven and earth suspended as the bell swung to and fro;
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
Sadly thought, "That twilight curfew rang young Basil's funeral knell."
Still the maiden clung more firmly, and with trembling lips so white,
Said, to hush her heart's