Woful end, and conflict long!
Stress of agonizing wrong!
In the black and stifling cell,
Watched by many a sentinel,
Not a saint is with her now
Beaming light from locks and brow;
No melodious angel calls
Through the huge unshaken walls;
But the brutal sworder jeers,
Making merry at her tears,
And the priests her faith assail
Till it fears, but cannot fail.
So the hopeful cheer she wore
Like a robe of state before—
Branch and leaf, and summer flower,
Perish from her hour by hour.
But the firm sustaining root
Dies not with the feathery shoot.
So survives her soul—but O!
Fierce the closing gust of wo,
When beneath the eyes of day
Thousands gather round her way,
And a host in steel array;
When the captive, wan and lowly,
Walks beside her gaoler slowly,
Till before the expectant pile
Weak she stands, with saddest smile;
And her steady tones reply
To the cowled tormentor's lie—
“God commanded me to go,
And I went, as well ye know,
To destroy my country's foe!”
While she clasps the saving rood
Fiercer swells the murderers mood,
Till, through rising smoke and flame
Comes no sound but Jesu's name—
Jesu—Jesu—oft renewed,
Oft by stifling pain subdued.
Soon that cry is heard no more,
And the people, mute before,
Groan to Heaven, for all is o'er.