THE LEGEND OF SAINT LAURA
Saint Larua, in her sleep of death,
Preserves beneath the tomb
—'Tis willed where what is willed must be—{1}
In incorruptability
Her beauty and her bloom.
So pure her maiden life had been,
So free from earthly stain,
'Twas fixed in fate by Heaven's own Queen,
That till the earth's last closing scene
She should unchanged remain.
1 Vuolsi cosi cola dove si puote
Ciô che si vuole, e piii non domandare.
—Dante.
Within a deep sarcophagus
Of alabaster sheen,
With sculptured lid of roses white,
She slumbered in unbroken night,
By mortal eyes unseen.
Above her marble couch was reared
A monumental shrine,
Where cloistered sisters, gathering round,
Made night and morn the aisle resound
With choristry divine
The abbess died: and in her pride
Her parting mandate said,
They should her final rest provide
The alabaster couch beside,
Where slept the sainted dead.
The abbess came of princely race:
The nuns might not gainsay:
And sadly passed the timid band,
To execute the high command
They dared not disobey.
The monument was opened then:
It gave to general sight
The alabaster couch alone:
But all its lucid substance shone
With preternatural tight.
They laid the corpse within the shrine!
They closed its doors again:
But nameless terror seemed to fall,
Throughout the livelong night, on all
Who formed the funeral train.
Lo! on the morrow morn, still closed
The monument was found;
But in its robes funereal drest,
The corpse they had consigned to rest
Lay on the stony ground.
Fear and amazement seized on all:
They called on Mary's aid:
And in the tomb, unclosed again,
With choral hymn and funeral train,
The corpse again was laid.
But with the incorruptible
Corruption might not rest:
The lonely chapel's stone-paved floor
Received the ejected corpse once more,
In robes funereal drest.
So was it found when morning beamed:
In solemn suppliant strain
The nuns implored all saints in heaven,
That rest might to the corpse be given,
Which they entombed again.
On the third night a watch was kept
By many a friar and nun:
Trembling, all knelt in fervent prayer,
'Till on the dreary midnight air
Rolled the deep bell-toll, 'One'!
The saint within the opening tomb
Like marble statue stood:
All fell to earth in deep dismay:
And through their ranks she passed away,
In calm unchanging mood.
No answering sound her footsteps raised
Along the stony floor:
Silent as death, severe as fate,
She glided through the chapel gate,
And none beheld her more.
The alabaster couch was gone:
The tomb was void and bare:
For the last time, with hasty rite,
Even 'mid the terror of the night,
They laid the abbess there.
'Tis said the abbess rests not well
In that sepulchral pile:
But yearly, when the night comes round
As dies of 'One' the bell's deep sound
She flits along the aisle.
But whither passed the virgin saint,
To slumber far away,
Destined by Mary to endure,
Unaltered in her semblance pure,
Until the judgment-day?
None knew, and none may ever know:
Angels the secret keep:
Impenetrable ramparts bound,
Eternal silence dwells around
The chamber of her sleep.
CHAPTER XXXV
REJECTED SUITORS—CONCLUSION
(Greek passage)
May the Gods grant what your best hopes pursue,
A husband, and a home, with concord true;
No greater boon from Jove's ethereal dome
Descends, than concord in the nuptial home
—Ulysses to Nausicaa, in the sixth book of the Odyssey.
What passed between Algernon and Morgana, when the twenty-eighth morning brought his probation to a close, it is unnecessary to relate. The gentleman being predetermined to propose, and the lady to accept, there was little to be said, but that little was conclusive.
Mr. Gryll was delighted. His niece could not have made a choice more thoroughly to his mind.
'My dear Morgana,' he said, 'all's well that ends well. Your fastidiousness in choice has arrived at a happy termination. And now you will perhaps tell me why you rejected so many suitors, to whom you had in turn accorded a hearing. In the first place, what was your objection to the Honourable Escor A'Cass?{1} He was a fine, handsome, dashing fellow. He was the first in the field, and you seemed to like him.'