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se. XLIV. See, as they creep along the river side, How she doth whisper to that aged Dame, And, after looking round the champaign wide, Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide, That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came, 350 And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed; The flint was there, the berries at his head. XLV. Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard, And let his spirit, like a demon-mole, Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard, To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole; Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd, And filling it once more with human soul? Ah! this is holiday to what was felt When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt. 360 XLVI. She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though One glance did fully all its secrets tell; Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well; Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow, Like to a native lily of the dell: Then with her knife, all sudden, she began To dig more fervently than misers can. XLVII. Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies, 370 She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone, And put it in her bosom, where it dries And freezes utterly unto the bone Those dainties made to still an infant's cries: Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care, But to throw back at times her veiling hair. XLVIII. That old nurse stood beside her wondering, Until her heart felt pity to the core At sight of such a dismal labouring, And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, 380 And put her lean hands to the horrid thing: Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore; At last they felt the kernel of the grave, And Isabella did not stamp and rave. XLIX. Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance? Why linger at the yawning tomb so long? O for the gentleness of old Romance, The simple plaining of a minstrel's song! Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance, For here, in truth, it doth not well belong 390 To speak:--O turn thee to the very tale, And taste the music of that vision pale. L. With duller steel than the Persean sword They cut away no formless mo
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