THE RING.
99
Pale it was, as if fell despair
Had written its worst of lessons there;
The features set like funeral stone,
All of good or kind from their meaning gone;
And the look of defiance to heaven cast,
As if feeling such look must be the last.
Down she knelt by the well, to say
What never prayer may wash away.
It was not a sound that pass'd along,
Nor aught that might to our earth belong.
And her words at once in their terror died,
For the spirit she call'd on stood by her side;
Not one of those fearful shapes that teem
On the midnight fears of the maniac's dream.
But better she could have brook'd to gaze
On the loathliest semblance the grave displays,
H 2
