Saint Laura, in her sleep of death,
Preserves beneath the tomb
--'Tis willed where what is willed must be--
In incorruptibility,
Her beauty and her bloom.
So pure her maiden life had been,
So free from earthly stain,
'Twas fixed in fate by Heaven's own Queen
That till the earth's last closing scene
She should unchanged remain.
Within a deep sarcophagus
Of alabaster sheen,
With sculptured lid of roses white,
She slumbered in unbroken night,
By mortal eyes unseen.
Above her marble couch was reared
A monumental shrine,
Where cloistered sisters gathering round,
Made night and morn the aisle resound
With choristry divine.
The abbess died; and in her pride
Her parting mandate said
They should her final rest provide,
The alabaster couch beside,
Where slept the sainted dead.
The abbess came of princely race;
The nuns might not gainsay;
And sadly passed the timid band,
To execute the high command
They dared not disobey.
The monument was opened then;
It gave to general sight
The alabaster couch alone;
But all its lucid substance shone
With preternatural light.
They laid the corpse within the shrine;
They closed its doors again;
But nameless terror seemed to fall,
Throughout the livelong night, on all
Who formed the funeral train.
Lo! on the morrow morn, still closed
The monument was found;
But in its robes funereal drest,
The corse they had consigned to rest
Lay on the stony ground.
Fear and amazement seized on all;
They called on Mary's aid;
And in the tomb, unclosed again,
With choral hymn and funeral train,
The corse again was laid.
But with the incorruptible
Corruption might not rest;
The lonely chapel's stone-paved floor
Received the ejected corse once more,
In robes funereal drest.
So was it found when morning beamed;
In solemn suppliant strain
The nuns implored all saints in heaven,
That rest might to the corse be given,
Which they entombed again.
On the third night a watch was kept
By many a friar and nun;
Trembling, all knelt in fervent prayer,
Till on the dreary midnight air
Rolled the deep bell-toll "One!"
The saint within the opening tomb
Like marble statue stood;
All fell to earth in deep dismay;
And through their ranks she passed away,
In calm unchanging mood.
No answering sound her footsteps raised
Along the stony floor;
Silent as death, severe as fate,
She glided through the chapel gate,
And none beheld her more.
The alabaster couch was gone;
The tomb was void and bare;
For the last time, with hasty rite,
Even 'mid the terror of the night,
They laid the abbess there.
'Tis said the abbess rests not well
In that sepulchral pile;
But yearly, when the night comes round
As dies of "one" the bell's deep sound
She flits along the aisle.
But whither passed the virgin saint?
To slumber far away,
Destined by Mary to endure,
Unaltered in her semblance pure,
Until the judgment day!