XXI

Day wore at last; the evening-star arose,
  And throbbing in the sky grew red and set;
Then with a guilty, wavering step he goes
  To the hid nook where they so oft had met
In happier season, for his heart well knows
  That he is sure to find poor Margaret
Watching and waiting there with love-lorn breast
Around her young dream’s rudely scattered nest.

XXII

Why follow here that grim old chronicle
  Which counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood? 450
Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell,
  Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood,
Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell,
  With a sad love, remembering when he stood
Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart,
Of all her holy dreams the holiest part.

XXIII

His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did,
  (So goes the tale,) beneath the altar there
In the high church the stiffening corpse he hid,
  And then, to ’scape that suffocating air, 460
Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he slid;
  But his strained eyes saw blood-spots everywhere,
And ghastly faces thrust themselves between
His soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien.

XXIV

His heart went out within him like a spark
  Dropt in the sea; wherever he made bold
To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark,
  Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish gold
Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy dark
  To spread a glory, and a thousand-fold 470
More strangely pale and beautiful she grew: 
Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through.

XXV

Or visions of past days,—­a mother’s eyes
  That smiled down on the fair boy at her knee,
Whose happy upturned face to hers replies.—­
  He saw sometimes:  or Margaret mournfully
Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who tries
  To crush belief that does love injury;
Then she would wring her hands, but soon again
Love’s patience glimmered out through cloudy pain. 480

XXVI

Meanwhile he dared, not go and steal away
  The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin;
He had not feared the life, but that dull clay,
  Those open eyes that showed the death within,
Would surely stare him mad; yet all the day
  A dreadful impulse, whence his will could win
No refuge, made him linger in the aisle,
Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile.

XXVII

Now, on the second day there was to be
  A festival in church:  from far and near 490
Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry,
  And knights and dames with stately antique cheer,
Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie
  Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were,
The illuminated marge of some old book,
While we were gazing, life and motion took.