And the weary nuns, with hearts that faintly
Beat along their voices saintly—
Ingemisco, ingemisco!

Dirge for abbess laid in shroud,
Sweepeth o'er the shroudless Dead,
Page or lady, as we said,

With the dews upon her head,
All as sad if not as loud.
Ingemisco, ingemisco!
Is ever a lament begun

By any mourner under sun,

Which, ere it endeth, suits but one?

THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY.

FIRST PART.

"ONORA, Onora!"—her mother is calling— She sits at the lattice, and hears the dew falling Drop after drop from the sycamores laden

With dew as with blossom-and calls home the maiden"Night cometh, Onora!"

She looks down the garden-walk caverned with trees,
To the limes at the end, where the green arbour is-
"Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her,
While, forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her,
Night cometh, Onora!”

She looks up the forest, whose alleys shoot on

Like the mute minster-aisles, when the anthem is done,
And the choristers, sitting with faces aslant,

Feel the silence to consecrate more than the chant-
"Onora, Onora!"

And forward she looketh across the brown heath

Onora, art coming?"-What is it she seeth?
Nought, nought, but the grey border-stone that is wist
To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist-

"My daughter!"—Then over

The casement she leaneth, and as she doth so,
She is 'ware of her little son playing below:
"Now where is Onora?"-He hung down his head
And spake not, then answering blushed scarlet-red,—
At the tryst with her lover."

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But his mother was wroth.

In a sternness quoth she,

"As thou play'st at the ball, art thou playing with me?
When we know that her lover to battle is gone,

And the saints know above that she loveth but one,
And will ne'er wed another?"

Then the boy wept aloud. 'Twas a fair sight, yet sad,
To see the tears run down the sweet blooms he had :
He stamped with his foot, said "The saints know I lied,
Because truth that is wicked, is fittest to hide!
Must I utter it, mother?"

In his vehement childhood he hurried within,
And knelt at her feet as in prayer against sin;
But a child at a prayer never sobbeth as he—
"Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown rosary,
At nights in the ruin!

"The old convent ruin, the ivy rots off,

Where the owl hoots by day, and the toad is sun-proof; Where no singing-birds build; and the trees gaunt and grey, As in stormy sea-coasts, appear blasted one way—

But is this the wind's doing?

"A nun in the east wall was buried alive,

Who mocked at the priest when he called her to shrive,— And shrieked such a curse as the stone took her breath, The old abbess fell backward and swooned unto death With an Ave half-spoken.

"I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound,
Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground!
A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot!
And the wolf thought the same, with his fangs at her throat,
In the pass of the Brocken.

"At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there,
With the brown rosary never used for a prayer?
Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see,
What an ugly great hole in that east wall must be
At dawn and at even!

"Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even?
Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven?
O sweetest my sister, what doeth with thee
The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary,
And a face turned from heaven?

"St. Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams; and erewhile
I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her smile—
But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her,
She whispered-'Say two prayers at dawn for Onora!
The Tempted is sinning.""

Onora, Onora! they heard her not coming

Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloaming!
But her mother looked up, and she stood on the floor,
Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before,
And a smile just beginning.

It touches her lips-but it dares not arise

To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes :
And the large musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry,
Sing on like the angels in separate glory,

Between clouds of amber.

For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured, till stirred
Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word;
While O soft!-her speaking is so interwound
Of the dim and the sweet, 'tis a twilight of sound,
And floats through the chamber.

"Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother," said she,
"I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me.
And I know by the hills, that the battle is done---
That my lover rides on-will be here with the sun,
'Neath the eyes that behold thee."

Her mother sate silent-too tender, I wis,

Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss ;

But the boy started up, pale with tears, passion-wrought,--'O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought!

If he cometh, who told thee?"

"I know by the hills," she resumed calm and clear,
By the beauty upon them, that HE is anear.
Did they ever look so since he bade me adieu?
Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true
As St. Agnes in sleeping."

Half-ashamed and half-softened, the boy did not speak,
And the blush met the lashes which fell on his cheek:
She bowed down to kiss him-Dear saints, did he see
Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY—

That he shrank away weeping?

SECOND PART.

A bed—ONORA sleeping. ANGELS, but not near.

As spirits, when

They meeken, not to God but men.
First Angel.

And she so young,--that I who bring
Good dreams for saintly children, might
Mistake that small soft face to-night,
And fetch her such a blessed thing,
That, at her waking, she would weep
For childhood lost anew in sleep.

How hath she sinned?

Second Angel.

God's love-for man's.

In bartering love-

First Angel.

We may reprove

The world for this! not only her.-
Let me approach, to breathe away
This dust o' the heart with holy air.

Second Angel.

Stand off! She sleeps, and did not pray.

First Angel.

Did none pray for her?

Second Angel.

Ay, a child,

THE PLACE IS FILLED.

Evil Spirit in a Nun's garb by the bed.

No more!

[ANGELS vanish.

Forbear that dream-forbear that dream! too near to Heaven it

leaned.

Onora in sleep.

Nay, leave me this-but only this! 'tis but a dream, sweet

fiend!

Evil Spirit.

It is a thought.
Onora in sleep.

A sleeping thought-most innocent of good

It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend! it cannot, if it would.
I say in it no holy hymn-I do no holy work;

I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from the kirk.
Evil Spirit.

Forbear that dream-forbear that dream!

Onora in sleep.

Nay, let me dream at least.

That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast―