Or visions of past days,--a mother's eyes That smiled down on the fair boy at her knee, Whose happy upturned face to hers replies,-- He saw sometimes: or Margaret mournfully Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who tries To crush belief that does love injury; Then she would wring her hands, but soon again Love's patience glimmered out through cloudy pain. XXVI. Meanwhile he dared not go and steal away The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin; He had not feared the life, but that dull clay, Those open eyes that showed the death within, Would surely stare him mad; yet all the day A dreadful impulse, whence his will could win No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile. XXVII. Now, on the second day there was to be A festival in church: from far and near Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry, And knights and dames with stately antique cheer, Blazing with pomp, as if all faërie Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were, The illuminated marge of some old book, While we were gazing, life and motion took. XXVIII. When all were entered, and the roving eyes Of all were staid, some upon faces bright, Some on the priests, some on the traceries That decked the slumber of a marble knight, And all the rustlings over that arise From recognizing tokens of delight, When friendly glances meet,--then silent ease Spread o'er the multitude by slow degrees. XXIX. Then swelled the organ: up through choir and nave The music trembled with an inward thrill Of bliss at its own grandeur: wave on wave Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave, Then, poising for a moment, it stood still, And sank and rose again, to burst in spray That wandered into silence far away. XXX. Like to a mighty heart the music seemed, That yearns with melodies it cannot speak, Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed, In the agony of effort it doth break, Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamed And wantoned in its might, as when a lake, Long pent among the mountains, bursts its walls And in one crowding gush leaps forth and falls. XXXI. Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air, As the huge bass kept gathering heavily, Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky, It grew up like a darkness everywhere, Filling the vast cathedral;--suddenly, From the dense mass a boy's clear treble broke Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke. XXXII.