The lid is moved--the beauteous face unveiled, Whose beauty not e’en violent death could mar. That instant forth the Moon sublimely sailed From darkest cloud that long its stormy bar To her light opposed, and shone o’er every star, Peerless in Heaven as Isidor on earth. Heart-piercing was the cry that pealed afar, As threw Beltrán his form on hers, in mirth Hysteric mixed with sobs, and clasped her frozen girth, XLV. And kist her icy lips--ah me, ’twas cold Reply to love that like a furnace glowed; Love that all lawless and forbidden told Its tale more fierce that o’er such bounds it strode-- The solemn bounds ’twixt Life and Death’s abode, ’Twixt Transience and Eternity! Her form Was fresh and pure, Decay could not corrode So soon its loveliness. Beltrán i’ the storm Still kist as if his breath her lifeless clay could warm. XLVI. But vain his kisses, vain his burning tears, Though poured in showers like those that left the sky. Man cannot weep for aye--his brain it sears To feel such anguish as Beltrán made cry Beneath the withering stroke of Destiny! Up from the grave he sprang, and fiercely bore The coffin-lid--its parts asunder fly-- With spade and mattock into lengths he tore The stubborn wood, and thus the grave he laid them o’er. XLVII. And from the churchyard near he gathered stones, And deftly filled the spaces ’twixt the wood; Then took what came to hand,--or clay or bones-- And wedged each interstice with worm’s old food, And when the work was done pronounced it good! Then o’er the deathful pit thus covered in He heaped the earth beside the margins strewed, Leaving but at the head a fissure thin For meagre body worn by sorrow and by sin! XLVIII. He entered worming through the aperture With cautious care lest all his toil should fail, And smiled he last to see the work so sure, Then drew his head within the covert frail. He laid him down beside that beauty pale, And with his hands the boards he turned aside, Destroying the slight arch that propt his gaol. The earth-fall smothered the last words he cried: “Though severed in our lives, yet Death could not divide!” HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO XI.