Then came the Abbot, with mitre 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 little 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 chaunts 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 "moveable _Do_," Not a fixed 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 for ever 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,[35] "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 'twould vex To think that the sex Should be treated no better than Combe's double X! Sure some one might run to the Abbess, and tell her A much better method of stocking her cellar."