XIV.

He ceased--and stood with folded arms, On which the circling fetters sounded; And not an ear but felt as wounded, 320 Of all the chiefs that there were ranked, When those dull chains in meeting clanked: Till Parisina's fatal charms[423] Again attracted every eye-- Would she thus hear him doomed to die! She stood, I said, all pale and still, The living cause of Hugo's ill: Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide, Not once had turned to either side-- Nor once did those sweet eyelids close, 330 Or shade the glance o'er which they rose, But round their orbs of deepest blue The circling white dilated grew-- And there with glassy gaze she stood As ice were in her curdled blood; But every now and then a tear[424] So large and slowly gathered slid From the long dark fringe of that fair lid, It was a thing to see, not hear![425] And those who saw, it did surprise, 340 Such drops could fall from human eyes. To speak she thought--the imperfect note Was choked within her swelling throat, Yet seemed in that low hollow groan Her whole heart gushing in the tone. It ceased--again she thought to speak, Then burst her voice in one long shriek, And to the earth she fell like stone Or statue from its base o'erthrown, More like a thing that ne'er had life,-- 350 A monument of Azo's wife,-- Than her, that living guilty thing, Whose every passion was a sting, Which urged to guilt, but could not bear That guilt's detection and despair. But yet she lived--and all too soon Recovered from that death-like swoon-- But scarce to reason--every sense Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense; And each frail fibre of her brain 360 (As bowstrings, when relaxed by rain, The erring arrow launch aside) Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide-- The past a blank, the future black, With glimpses of a dreary track, Like lightning on the desert path, When midnight storms are mustering wrath. She feared--she felt that something ill Lay on her soul, so deep and chill; That there was sin and shame she knew, 370 That some one was to die--but who? She had forgotten:--did she breathe? Could this be still the earth beneath, The sky above, and men around; Or were they fiends who now so frowned On one, before whose eyes each eye Till then had smiled in sympathy? All was confused and undefined To her all-jarred and wandering mind; A chaos of wild hopes and fears: 380 And now in laughter, now in tears, But madly still in each extreme, She strove with that convulsive dream; For so it seemed on her to break: Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!