Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/329

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BOOK THE NINTH.
317
Then with a deep heart-terrifying voice,Exclaim'd the Spectre, "Welcome to these realms,These regions of Despair! O thou whose stepsBy Grief conducted to these sad abodes 70Have pierc'd; welcome, welcome to this gloomEternal; to this everlasting night;Where never morning darts the enlivening ray,Where never shines the sun, but all is dark,Dark as the bosom of their gloomy King!" 75
So saying he arose, and by the handThe Virgin seized with such a death-cold touchAs froze her very heart; and drawing on,Her, to the abbey's inner ruin, ledResistless: thro' the broken roof the moon 80Glimmer'd a scatter'd ray: the ivy twin'dRound the dismantled column: imaged formsOf Saints and warlike Chiefs, moss-canker'd nowAnd mutilate, lay strewn upon the ground;With crumbled fragments, crucifixes fallen, 85

And

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