The loud blast roar’d Amid the pile; and from the tower the owl Scream’d as the tempest shook her secret nest. He, silent, led her on, and often paus’d, And pointed, that her eye might contemplate At leisure the drear scene. He dragged her on Thro’ a low iron door, down broken stairs; Then a cold horror thro’ the Maiden’s frame Crept, for she stood amid a vault, and saw, By the sepulchral lamp’s dim glaring light, The fragments of the dead. “Look here!” he cried, “Damsel, look here! survey this house of Death; O soon to tenant it! soon to increase These trophies of mortality! for hence Is no return. Gaze here! behold this skull, These eyeless sockets, and these unflesh’d jaws, That with their ghastly grinning, seem to mock Thy perishable charms; for thus thy cheek Must moulder. Child of Grief! shrinks not thy soul, Viewing these horrors? trembles not thy heart At the dread thought, that here its life’s-blood soon Now warm in life and feeling, mingle soon With the cold clod? a thought most horrible! So only dreadful, for reality Is none of suffering here; here all is peace; No nerve will throb to anguish in the grave. Dreadful it is to think of losing life; But having lost, knowledge of loss is not, Therefore no ill. Haste, Maiden, to repose; Probe deep the seat of life.” So spake Despair The vaulted roof echoed his hollow voice, And all again was silence. Quick her heart Panted. He drew a dagger from his breast, And cried again, “Haste Damsel to repose! One blow, and rest for ever!” On the Fiend Dark scowl’d the Virgin with indignant eye, And dash’d the dagger down. He next his heart Replaced the murderous steel, and drew the Maid Along the downward vault. The damp earth gave A dim sound as they pass’d: the tainted air Was cold, and heavy with unwholesome dews. “Behold!” the fiend exclaim’d, “how gradual here The fleshly burden of mortality Moulders to clay!” then fixing his broad eye Full on her face, he pointed where a corpse Lay livid; she beheld with loathing look, The spectacle abhorr’d by living man.