Upon whose wrinkled brow alone,

Nor truth, nor mercy's trace, is shown,
Whose look is hard and stern,
Saint Cuthbert's Abbot is his style;
For sanctity call'd, through the isle,
The Saint of Lindisfarne.

XX.

Before them stood a guilty pair;
But, though an equal fate they share,
Yet one alone deserves our care.
Her sex a page's dress belied;

The cloak and doublet, loosely tied,

Obscured her charms, but could not hide.
Her cap down o'er her face she drew;
And, on her doublet breast,

She tried to hide the badge of blue,
Lord Marmion's falcon crest.
But, at the Prioress' command,
A Monk undid the silken band,
That tied her tresses fair,

And raised the bonnet from her head,
And down her slender form they spread,

In ringlets rich and rare.

Constance de Beverley they know,

Sister profess'd of Fontevraud,

Whom the church number'd with the dead,

For broken vows, and convent fled.

XXI.

When thus her face was given to view,

(Although so pallid was her hue,

It did a ghastly contrast bear

To those bright ringlets glistering fair,)
Her look composed, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy;
And there she stood so calm and pale,
That, but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted

That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax,
Wrought to the very life, was there;
So still she was, so pale, so fair.1

1 The picture of Constance before her judges, though more laboured (than that of the Voyage of the Lady Abbess), is not, to our taste, so pleasing; though it has beauty of a kind fully as popular. Jeffrey.

I sent for Marmion, because it occurred to me there might be a resemblance between part of Parisina, and a similar scene in the second canto of Marmion. I fear there is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable. I wish you would ask Mr. Gifford whether I ought to say anything upon it. I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably. - Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Feb. 3, 1816. Compare:

“... Parisina's fatal charms

Again attracted every eye —

Would she thus hear him doom'd 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 turn'd to either side —
Nor once did those sweet eyelids close,
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose,