Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/322

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE To pray, and think awhile on Heaven,—her one

Sole passion, now the Prince had thither gone.

She reached the gate, and through the vestibule

The nuns, with reverence for the royal sorrow,

Led to the shrine, and left her there to school

Her heart for that sad pageant of the morrow.

O, what deep sighs, what piteous tearful prayers,

What golden grief-blanched hair strewn unawares!

Anon her coming through the place was sped,

And when from that lone ecstasy she rose

The saintly Abbess held her steps, and said:

"God rest those, daughter, who in others' woes

Forget their own! In yonder corridor

A sister-sufferer lies, and will no more

A worldling once, the chamberlain's young wife,

But now a pious novice, meet for death;

She prays to see your face once more in life."

She answered, "I will visit her," and bowed

Her head, and, following, reached the room where lay

One that had wronged her so; and shrank to see

That beauteous pallid face, so pined away,

And the starved lips that murmured painfully,

At the Queen's sign, they two were left anear.

With that the dying rushed upon her speech,

As one condemned, who gulps the poisoned wine

Nor pauses, lest to see it stand at reach

Were crueller still. "Madam, I sought a sign,"

She cried, "to know if God would have me make

Confession, and to you! now let me take

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