Of vespers, but no vesper bell was heard, Nor other sound, than of the passing stream, Or stork, who flapping with wide wing the air, Sought her broad nest upon the silent tower. Brethren and pupils thence alike had fled To save themselves within the embattled walls Of neighbouring Merida. One aged Monk Alone was left behind; he would not leave The sacred spot beloved, for having served There from his childhood up to ripe old age God’s holy altar, it became him now, He thought, before that altar to await The merciless misbelievers, and lay down His life, a willing martyr. So he staid When all were gone, and duly fed the lamps, And kept devotedly the altar drest, And duly offer’d up the sacrifice. Four days and nights he thus had pass’d alone, In such high mood of saintly fortitude, That hope of Heaven became a heavenly joy; And now at evening to the gate he went If he might spy the Moors, ... for it seem’d long To tarry for his crown. Before the Cross Roderick had thrown himself; his body raised, Half kneeling, half at length he lay; his arms Embraced its foot, and from his lifted face Tears streaming down bedew’d the senseless stone. He had not wept till now, and at the gush Of these first tears, it seem’d as if his heart, From a long winter’s icey thrall let loose, Had open’d to the genial influences Of Heaven. In attitude, but not in act Of prayer he lay; an agony of tears Was all his soul could offer. When the Monk Beheld him suffering thus, he raised him up, And took him by the arm, and led him in; And there before the altar, in the name Of Him whose bleeding image there was hung, Spake comfort, and adjured him in that name There to lay down the burthen of his sins. Lo! said Romano, I am waiting here The coming of the Moors, that from their hands My spirit may receive the purple robe Of martyrdom, and rise to claim its crown. That God who willeth not the sinner’s death Hath led thee hither. Threescore years and five, Even from the hour when I, a five-years child, Enter’d the schools, have I continued here And served the altar: not in all those years Hath such a contrite and a broken heart Appear’d before me. O my brother, Heaven Hath sent thee for thy comfort, and for mine, That my last earthly act may reconcile A sinner to his God. Then Roderick knelt Before the holy man, and strove to speak. Thou seest, he cried, ... thou seest, ... but memory And suffocating thoughts repress’d the word, And shudderings like an ague fit, from head To foot convulsed him; till at length, subduing His nature to the effort, he exclaim’d, Spreading his hands and lifting up his face, As if resolved in penitence to bear A human eye upon his shame, ... Thou seest Roderick the Goth! That name would have sufficed To tell its whole abhorred history: He not the less pursued, ...