The Princess by Alfred Tennyson

So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turned to hospital; At first with all confusion: by and by Sweet order lived again with other laws: A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere Low voices with the ministering hand Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they talked, They sang, they read: till she not fair began To gather light, and she that was, became Her former beauty treble; and to and fro With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, Like creatures native unto gracious act, And in their own clear element, they moved.

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. Old studies failed; seldom she spoke: but oft Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men Darkening her female field: void was her use, And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; So blackened all her world in secret, blank And waste it seemed and vain; till down she came, And found fair peace once more among the sick.