By men to bind but once provided, Could not be shared by him and me, Or they would kill him in their glee, I shuddered, and then laughing said-- _850 'We will have rites our faith to bind, But our church shall be the starry night, Our altar the grassy earth outspread, And our priest the muttering wind.' 'Twas sunset as I spoke: one star _855 Had scarce burst forth, when from afar The ministers of misrule sent, Seized upon Lionel, and bore His chained limbs to a dreary tower, In the midst of a city vast and wide. _860 For he, they said, from his mind had bent Against their gods keen blasphemy, For which, though his soul must roasted be In hell's red lakes immortally, Yet even on earth must he abide _865 The vengeance of their slaves: a trial, I think, men call it. What avail Are prayers and tears, which chase denial From the fierce savage, nursed in hate? What the knit soul that pleading and pale _870 Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late It painted with its own delight? We were divided. As I could, I stilled the tingling of my blood, And followed him in their despite, _875 As a widow follows, pale and wild, The murderers and corse of her only child; And when we came to the prison door And I prayed to share his dungeon floor With prayers which rarely have been spurned, _880 And when men drove me forth and I Stared with blank frenzy on the sky, A farewell look of love he turned, Half calming me; then gazed awhile, As if thro' that black and massy pile, _885 And thro' the crowd around him there, And thro' the dense and murky air, And the thronged streets, he did espy What poets know and prophesy; And said, with voice that made them shiver _890 And clung like music in my brain, And which the mute walls spoke again Prolonging it with deepened strain: 'Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever, Or the priests of the bloody faith; _895 They stand on the brink of that mighty river, Whose waves they have tainted with death: It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells, Around them it foams, and rages, and swells, And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, _900 Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.'