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
"Pass through her door to catch the morning's breath,—
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, too, is widowed," thought the Queen. Aloud
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,
"I have a secret none but she may hear."
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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