BOOK THE NINTH.
317
Then with a deep heart-terrifying voice,
Exclaim'd the Spectre, "Welcome to these realms,
These regions of Despair! O thou whose steps
By Grief conducted to these sad abodes 70
Have pierc'd; welcome, welcome to this gloom
Eternal; to this everlasting night;
Where never morning darts the enlivening ray,
Where never shines the sun, but all is dark,
Dark as the bosom of their gloomy King!" 75
Exclaim'd the Spectre, "Welcome to these realms,
These regions of Despair! O thou whose steps
By Grief conducted to these sad abodes 70
Have pierc'd; welcome, welcome to this gloom
Eternal; to this everlasting night;
Where never morning darts the enlivening ray,
Where never shines the sun, but all is dark,
Dark as the bosom of their gloomy King!" 75
So saying he arose, and by the hand
The Virgin seized with such a death-cold touch
As froze her very heart; and drawing on,
Her, to the abbey's inner ruin, led
Resistless: thro' the broken roof the moon 80
Glimmer'd a scatter'd ray: the ivy twin'd
Round the dismantled column: imaged forms
Of Saints and warlike Chiefs, moss-canker'd now
And mutilate, lay strewn upon the ground;
With crumbled fragments, crucifixes fallen, 85
The Virgin seized with such a death-cold touch
As froze her very heart; and drawing on,
Her, to the abbey's inner ruin, led
Resistless: thro' the broken roof the moon 80
Glimmer'd a scatter'd ray: the ivy twin'd
Round the dismantled column: imaged forms
Of Saints and warlike Chiefs, moss-canker'd now
And mutilate, lay strewn upon the ground;
With crumbled fragments, crucifixes fallen, 85
And
