SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
She kissed it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her bosom, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone
Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
Then Jgan she work again ; nor stayed her care,	375
But to throw back at times her veiling hair.
XLVIII
That old nurse stood beside her wondering,
Until her heart felt pity to the core
At sight of such a dismal labouring,
And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,	3$°
And put her lean hand to the horrid thing:
Three hours they laboured at this travail sore;
At last they felt the kernel of the grave,
And Isabella did not stamp and rave.
XLIX
Ah ! wherefore all this wormy circumstance ?	385
Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?
O for the gentleness of old 'Romance,
The simple plaining of a minstrel's song!
Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,
For here, in truth, it doth not \vell belong	390
To speak :—O turn thee to the very tale,
And taste the music of that vision pale.
L
With duller steel than the Persean sword
They cut away no formless monster's head,
But one, whose gentleness did well accord	395
With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,
Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord :
145	W