Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/56

18 And praise the chiselled broideries rare—

Then they drop away.

The princely pair are left alone

In the Church of Brou.

rest, forever rest, O princely pair!

In your high church, 'mid the still mountain-air,

Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come.

Only the blessed saints are smiling dumb

From the rich painted windows of the nave

On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave;

Where thou, young prince, shalt never more arise

From the fringed mattress where thy duchess lies,

On autumn-mornings, when the bugle sounds,

And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds

To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve;

And thou, O princess, shalt no more receive,

Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state,

The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,

Coming benighted to the castle-gate.

So sleep, forever sleep, O marble pair!

Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair

On the carved western front a flood of light

Streams from the setting sun, and colors bright

Prophets, transfigured saints, and martyrs brave,

In the vast western window of the nave;

And on the pavement round the tomb there glints

A checker-work of glowing sapphire-tints,