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

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PARISINA.
525

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,500
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;510
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;520
Or if, upon the moment smote,

She died by tortures less remote,