And then a vision pass'd Across my mental eye; And silver shrines, and shaven crowns, And delicate ladies, in bombazeen gowns, And long white vails, went by; Stiff, and staid, and solemn, and sad,-- --But one, methought, wink'd at the Gardener-lad! Then came the Abbot, with miter and ring, And pastoral staff, and all that sort of thing, And a monk with a book, and a monk with a bell, And "dear linen souls," In clean linen stoles, Swinging their censers, and making a smell.-- And see where the Choir-master walks in the rear With front severe And brow austere, Now and then pinching a little boy's ear When he chants the responses too late or too soon, Or his Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La's not quite in tune. (Then you know They'd a "movable Do," Not a fix'd one as now--and of course never knew How to set up a musical Hullah-baloo.) It was, in sooth, a comely sight, And I welcom'd the vision with pure delight. But then "a change came o'er" My spirit--a change of fear-- That gorgeous scene I beheld no more, But deep beneath the basement floor A dungeon dark and drear! And there was an ugly hole in the wall-- For an oven too big,--for a cellar too small! And mortar and bricks All ready to fix, And I said, "Here's a Nun has been playing some tricks!-- That horrible hole!--it seems to say, 'I'm a grave that gapes for a living prey!'" And my heart grew sick, and my brow grew sad-- And I thought of that wink at the Gardener-lad. Ah me! ah me!--'tis sad to think That maiden's eye, which was made to wink, Should here be compelled to grow blear and blink, Or be closed for aye In this kind of way, Shut out forever from wholesome day, Wall'd up in a hole with never a chink, No light,--no air,--no victuals,--no drink!-- And that maiden's lip, Which was made to sip, Should here grow wither'd and dry as a chip! --That wandering glance and furtive kiss, Exceedingly naughty, and wrong, I wis, Should yet be considered so much amiss As to call for a sentence severe as this!-- And I said to myself, as I heard with a sigh The poor lone victim's stifled cry, "Well, I can't understand How any man's hand COULD wall up that hole in a Christian land! Why, a Mussulman Turk Would recoil from the work, And though, when his ladies run after the fellows, he Stands not on trifles, if madden'd by jealousy, Its objects, I'm sure, would declare, could they speak, In their Georgian, Circassian, or Turkish, or Greek, 'When all's said and done, far better it was for us, Tied back to back And sewn up in a sack, To be pitch'd neck-and-heels from a boat in the Bosphorus!' Oh! a saint 't would vex To think that the sex Should be no better treated than Combe's double X!