looked wicked from the outer wall, Or, on occasion, a grim ruthless lord Immured some inconvenient two-faced friend—      To banquet bidden, and kept over night. Such pranks were played in Merrie England then. Sealed in the narrow compass of that cell, Shut from God's light and his most precious air, A man might have of life a half-hour's lease If he were hale and well-breathed at the start. Hither did Richard bear his brother's corse And fling it down. Upon the stone-paved floor In a thin strip of moonlight flung it down, And then drew breath. Perhaps he paused to glance At the white face there, with the strange half-smile      Out-living death, the brightness of the hair Lying in loops and tangles round the brow—      A seraph's face of silver set in gold, Such as the deft Italians know to carve; Perhaps his tiger's blood cooled then, perhaps Swift pity at his very heart-strings tugged, And he in that black moment of remorse, Seeing how there his nobler self lay slain, Had bartered all this jewel-studded earth To win life's color back to that wan cheek. Ah, let us hope it, and some mercy feel, Since each at compt shall need of mercy have. Now how it happened, whether 't was the wind, Or whether 't was some incorporeal hand That reached down through the dark and did the thing, Man knoweth not, but suddenly both doors, Ere one could utter cry or put forth arm, Closed with dull clang, and there in his own trap Incontinent was red-stained Richard caught, And as by flash of lightning saw his doom. Call, an thou wilt, but every ear is stuffed With slumber! Shriek, and run quick frenzied hands Along the iron sheathing of thy grave—      For 't is thy grave—no egress shalt thou find, No lock to break, no subtile-sliding bolt, No careless rivet, no half loosened plate For dagger's point to fret at and pry off And let a stifling mortal get to air! Angels of Light! what were a thousand years Of rankling envy and contemned love And all the bitter draughts a man may drink To that half hour of Richard's with his Dead? Through silence, gloom, and star-strown paths of Night The breathless hours like phantoms stole away. Black lay the earth, in primal blackness wrapt Ere the great miracle once more was wrought. A chill wind freshened in the pallid East And brought sea-smell of newly blossomed foam, And stirred the leaves and branch-hung nests of birds. Fainter the glow-worm's lantern glimmered now In the marsh land and on the forest's hem, And the slow dawn with purple laced the sky Where sky and 

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