A train of holy fathers windeth by
    The arches of an aged sanctuary,
    With cowl, and scapular, and rosary
    On to the sainted oriel, where stood,
    By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood—­
    A weeping group of virgins! one or two
    Bent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,
    Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,
    With its black pall flung over:—­Agathe
    Was on the lid—­a name.  And who?—­No more! 
    ’Twas only Agathe.

                       ’Tis o’er, ’tis o’er,—­
    Her burial! and, under the arcades,
    Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;
    And there is heard the music, a brief while,
    Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,
    From the deep organ panting out its last,
    Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.

A lonely monk is loitering within
The dusky area, at the altar seen,
Like a pale spirit kneeling in the light
Of the cold moon, that looketh wan and white
Through the deviced oriel; and he lays
His hands upon his bosom, with a gaze
To the chill earth.  He had the youthful look
Which heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shook
At every gust of the unholy breeze,
That enter’d through the time-worn crevices.

    A score of summers only o’er his brow
    Had pass’d—­and it was summer, even now,
    The one-and-twentieth—­from a birth of tears,
    Over a waste of melancholy years! 
    And that brow was as wan as if it were
    Of snowy marble, and the raven hair
    That would have cluster’d over, was all shorn,
    And his fine features stricken pale as morn.

    He kiss’d a golden crucifix that hung
    Around his neck, and in a transport flung
    Himself upon the earth, and said, and said
    Wild, raving words, about the blessed dead: 
    And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood,
    Gazing upon its light in solitude;
    And smote his brow, at some idea wild
    That came across:  then, weeping like a child,
    He falter’d out the name of Agathe;
    And look’d unto the heaven inquiringly,
    And the pure stars.

                       “Oh shame! that ye are met,
    To mock me, like old memories, that yet
    Break in upon the golden dream I knew,
    While she—­she lived:  and I have said adieu
    To that fair one, and to her sister Peace,
    That lieth in her grave.  When wilt thou cease
    To feed upon my quiet!—­thou Despair! 
    That art the mad usurper, and the heir,
    Of this heart’s heritage!  Go, go—­return,
    And bring me back oblivion, and an urn! 
    And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find,
    The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the wind
    Count o’er its blighted boughs; for such was he
    That loved, and loves, the silent Agathe!”
    And he hath left the sanctuary,