'The old convent ruin the ivy rots off,

Where the owl hoots by day, and the toad is sunproof:

Where no singing-birds build, and the trees gaunt and grey

As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one wayBut is this the wind's doing?

'A nun in the east wall was buried alive,

Who mocked at the priest when he called her to

shrive,

And shrieked such a curse, as the stone took her breath,

The old abbess fell backward and swooned unto death, With an Ave half-spoken.

'I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound,
Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground.
A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot!
And the wolf thought the same with his fangs at her

throat

In the pass of the Brocken.

'At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there, With the brown rosary never used for a prayer? Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see, What an ugly great hole in that east wall must be

At dawn and at even!

'Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even?
Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven?
O sweetest my sister, what doeth with thee,
The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary
And a face turned from heaven?

'St. Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams, and erewhile I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her

smile;

But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her, She whispered-'Say two prayers at dawn for Onora!

The Tempted is sinning.'

Onora, Onora! they heard her not coming-

Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloam

ing;

But her mother looked up, and she stood on the floor Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before,

And a smile just beginning.

It touches her lips-but it dares not arise
To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes;
And the large musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry,
Sing on like the angels in separate glory,
Between clouds of amber.

For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured, till stirred

Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word; While-O soft!-her speaking is so interwound Of the dim and the sweet, 'tis a twilight of sound And floats through the chamber.

'Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother,' said she,

'I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me And I know by the hills that the battle is doneThat my lover rides on will be here with the sun, 'Neath the eyes that behold thee.'

Her mother sate silent-too tender, I wis,
Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss.
But the boy started up pale with tears, passion-

wrought,

'O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought! If he cometh, who told thee?"

'I know by the hills,' she resumed calm and clear, 'By the beauty upon them, that He is anear. Did they ever look so since he bade me adieu? Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true

As St. Agnes in sleeping.'

Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy did not speak,
And the blush met the lashes which fell on his cheek:
She bowed down to kiss him-Dear saints, did he see
Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY,
That he shrank away weeping?

SECOND PART.

A bed.-ONORA sleeping. Angels, but not near.

First Angel.

And she so young, -that I who bring
Good dreams for saintly children, might
Mistake that small soft face to-night,

And fetch her such a blessèd thing,

That at her waking she would weep

For childhood lost anew in sleep.

How hath she sinned!

Second Angel.

In bartering love;

God's love for man's.

First Angel.

We may reprove

The world for this, not only her.

Let me approach to breathe away

This dust o' the heart with holy air.

Second Angel.

Stand off! She sleeps, and did not pray.

First Angel.

Did none pray for her?

Second Angel.

Ay, a child,

Who never, praying, wept before:
While, in a mother undefiled

Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true

And pauseless as the pulses do.

Evil Spirit in a Nun's garb by the bed. Forbear that dream-forbear that dream! too near

to Heaven it leaned.

Onora in sleep.

Nay, leave me this-but only this! 'tis but a dream,

sweet fiend!

Evil Spirit.

It is a thought.

Onora in sleepр.

A sleeping thought-most innocent of good.

It doth the devil no harm, sweet fiend! it cannot if

it would.

I say in it no holy hymn, I do no holy work,
I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from

the kirk.

Evil Spirit.

Forbear that dream-forbear that dream!

Onora in sleep.

Nay, let me dream at least.

That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast.
I only walk among the fields, beneath the autumn-sun,
With my dead father, hand in hand, as I have often

done.

Evil Spirit.

Forbear that dream-forbear that dream!

Onora in sleep.

Nay, sweet fiend, let me go.

I never more can walk with him, oh, never more but so. For they have tied my father's feet beneath the kirkyard stone,

Oh, deep and straight, oh, very straight! they move at nights alone:

And then he calleth through my dreams, he calleth tenderly,