“Now all our earthly portion in one mass Is loosed against us with this single stroke! Yet we are Queen, and still must live,—alas!— As he would have us.” Even as she spoke She wept, and mended thence, yet bore the face Of one whose fate delays but for a space. Thenceforth she worked and waited till the call Of Heaven should close the labor and the pause. Months, seasons passed, yet evermore a pall Hung round the court. The sorrow and the cause Were always with her; after things were tame Beside the shadow of his deeds and fame. Her palaces and parks seemed desolate; No joy was left in sky or street or field; No age, she thought, would see the Prince’s mate: What matchless hand his knightly sword could wield? The world had lost, this royal widow said, Its one bright jewel when the Prince was dead. So that his fame might be enduring there For many a reign, and sacred through the land, She gathered bronze and lazuli, and rare Swart marbles, while her cunning artists planned A stately cenotaph,—and bade them place Above its front the Prince’s form and face, Sculptured, as if in life. But the pale Queen, Watching the work herself, would somewhat lure Her heart from plaining; till, behind a screen, The tomb was finished, glorious and pure, Even like the Prince: and they proclaimed a day When the Queen’s hand should draw its veil away. It chanced, the noon before, she bade them fetch Her equipage, and with her children rode Beyond the city walls, across a stretch Of the green open country, where abode Her subjects, happy in the field and grange, And with their griefs, that took a meaner range, Content. But as her joyless vision dwelt On beauty that so failed her wound to heal, She marked the Abbey’s ancient pile, and felt A longing at its chapel-shrine to kneel, To pray, and think awhile on Heaven,—her one Sole passion, now the Prince had thither gone. She reached the gate, and through the vestibule The nuns, with reverence for the royal sorrow, Led to the shrine, and left her there to school Her heart for that sad pageant of the morrow. O, what deep sighs, what piteous tearful prayers, What golden grief-blanched hair strewn unawares! Anon her coming through the place was sped, And when from that lone ecstasy she rose The saintly Abbess held her steps, and said: “God rests those, daughter, who in others’ woes Forget their own! In yonder corridor A sister-sufferer lies, and will no more “Pass through her door to catch the morning’s breath,— A worldling once, the chamberlain’s young wife, But now a pious novice, meet for death; She prays to see your face once more in life.” “She, too, is widowed,” thought the Queen. Aloud She answered, “I will visit her,” and bowed