Outside her kennel the mastiff old Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. The mastiff old did not awake, Yet she an angry moan did make! And what can ail the mastiff bitch? Never till now she utter'd yell Beneath the eye of Christabel. Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch: For what can ail the mastiff bitch? They pass'd the hall, that echoes still, Pass as lightly as you will! The brands were flat, the brands were dying, Amid their own white ashes lying; But when the lady pass'd, there came A tongue of light, a fit of flame; And Christabel saw the lady's eye, And nothing else saw she thereby, Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. "O softly tread," said Christabel, "My father seldom sleepeth well." Sweet Christabel her feet both bare, And, jealous of the listening air, They steal their way from stair to stair, Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, And now they pass the Baron's room, And still as death, with stifled breath! And now have reach'd her chamber door; And now doth Geraldine press down The rushes of the chamber floor. The moon shines dim in the open air, And not a moonbeam enters here. But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously, Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver's brain, For a lady's chamber meet: The lamp with twofold silver chain Is fasten'd to an angel's feet. The silver lamp burns dead and dim; But Christabel the lamp will trim. She trimm'd the lamp, and made it bright, And left it swinging to and fro, While Geraldine, in wretched plight, Sank down upon the floor below. "O weary lady, Geraldine, I pray you, drink this cordial wine! It is a wine of virtuous powers; My mother made it of wild flowers." "And will your mother pity me, Who am a maiden most forlorn?" Christabel answered--"Woe is me! She died the hour that I was born. I have heard the gray-hair'd friar tell, How on her death-bed she did say, That she should hear the castle-bell Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. O mother dear! that thou wert here!" "I would," said Geraldine, "she were!" But soon with altered voice, said she-- "Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine! I have power to bid thee flee." Alas! what ails poor Geraldine? Why stares she with unsettled eye? Can she the bodiless dead espy? And why with hollow voice cries she, "Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-- Though thou her guardian spirit be, Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me."