Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/32

FAIR ELEANOR.

THE bell struck one and shook the silent tower;
The graves give up their dead: fair Eleanor
Walk'd by the castle-gate, and looked in;
A hollow groan ran thro' the dreary vaults.
 
She shriek'd aloud, and sunk upon the steps,
On the cold stone her pale cheek. Sickly smells
Of death issue as from a sepulchre,
And all is silent but the sighing vaults.

Chill death withdraws his hand, and she revives;
Amazed she finds herself upon her feet,
And, like a ghost, through narrow passages
Walking, feeling the cold walls with her hands.
 
Fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones
And grinning skulls, and corruptible death
Wrapt in his shroud; and now fancies she hears
Deep sighs, and sees pale sickly ghosts gliding.
 
At length no fancy, but reality
Distracts her. A rushing sound, and the feet
Of one that fled, approaches.—Ellen stood,
Like a dumb statue, froze to stone with fear.