n.

Above her marble couch was reared
A monumental shrine,
Where cloistered sisters gathering round,
Made night and morn the aisle resound
With choristry divine.

The abbess died; and in her pride
Her parting mandate said
They should her final rest provide,
The alabaster couch beside,
Where slept the sainted dead.

The abbess came of princely race;
The nuns might not gainsay;
And sadly passed the timid band,
To execute the high command
They dared not disobey.

The monument was opened then;
It gave to general sight
The alabaster couch alone;
But all its lucid substance shone
With preternatural light.

They laid the corpse within the shrine;
They closed its doors again;
But nameless terror seemed to fall,
Throughout the livelong night, on all
Who formed the funeral train.

Lo! on the morrow morn, still closed
The monument was found;
But in its robes funereal drest,
The corse they had consigned to rest
Lay on the stony ground.

Fear and amazement seized on all;
They called on Mary's aid;
And in the tomb, unclosed again,
With choral hymn and funeral train,
The corse again was laid.

But with the incorruptible
Corruption might not rest;
The lonely chapel's stone-paved floor
Received the ejected corse once more,
In robes funereal drest.

So was it found when morning beamed;
In solemn suppliant strain
The nuns implored all saints in heaven,
That rest might to the corse be given,
Which they entombed again.

On the third night a watch was kept
By many a friar and nun;
Trembling, all knelt in fervent prayer,
Till on the dreary midnight air
Rolled the deep bell-toll "One!"

The saint within the opening tomb
Like marble statue stood;
All fell to earth in deep dismay;
And through their ranks she passed away,
In calm unchanging mood.

No answering sound her footsteps