XLIV.

_Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ From the convent on the sea, Now it sweepeth solemnly, As over wood and over lea Bodily the wind did carry The great altar of St. Mary, And the fifty tapers paling o'er it, And the Lady Abbess stark before it, And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly Beat along their voices saintly-- _Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ Dirge for abbess laid in shroud Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead, Page or lady, as we said, With the dews upon her head, All as sad if not as loud. _Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ Is ever a lament begun By any mourner under sun, Which, ere it endeth, suits but _one_?

_THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY._

FIRST PART.