Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/563

Rh 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,

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;

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;

Or if, upon the moment smote,

She died by tortures less remote,