Again the veil up. Ou earth she lies—
With the drear mantle of the pall spread o'er,
The new-made nun, the living sacrifice,
Dead to this world of our's for evermore!
The sun his parting rays has ceased to pour,
As loth to lend his light to such a scene. . .
The Sisters raise her from the sacred floor,
Supporting her their holy arms between,
The mitred priest stands up with patriarchal mien,
And speaks the Benediction; all is done.
A life-in-death must her long years consume.
She clasped her new-made sisters one by one.
As the black shadows their embraces gave.
They seemed like spectres from their place of doom.
Stealing from out eternal night's blind cave,
To meet their comrade new, and hail her to the grave.
The curtain fell again, the scene was o'er.
The pageant gone—its glitter and its pride,
And it would be a pageant and no more,
But for the maid miscalled the Heavenly Bride.
If I, an utter stranger, unallied
To her by slightest ties, some grief sustain,
What feels the yearning mother from whose side
Is torn the child whom she hath reared in vain,
To share her joys no more, no more to soothe her pain!
