midnight
So like statues all , Waiting they stood without that lighted hall ; And in their hands , like a blue star , they held Each one a silver lamp . ' '' Standing immediately behind her , Dr. Grey saw that she had seized the weird '' _ Vision of Virgins _ , '' and was putting into pigment that solemn phantasm of the poet 's imagination where five radiant women were passing to their reward , -- and five wailing over flickering , dying lamps , were huddled helplessly and hopelessly under a black and starless midnight sky . Although unfinished , there was marvellous power in the picture , and the sickly gleam from the expiring wicks made the surrounding gloom more supernatural , like the deep shadows skulking behind the lurid glare in some old Flemish painting . He saw also that she had followed the general outline of the poem ; but one of the faces was so supreme in its mute anguish that he thought of Reni 's `` Cenci , '' and of a wan `` Alcestis , '' and a desperate `` Cassandra , '' he had seen at Rome ; and , in comparison , the description of the poet seemed almost vapid , -- ... `` One as still as death Hollowed her hands about her lamp , for fear Some motion of the midnight , or her breath , Should fan out the last flicker . Rosy clear The light oozed through her fingers o'er her face . There was a ruined beauty hovering there Over deep pain , and dashed with lurid grace A waning bloom . '' The room with its costly , quaint , and tasteful furniture , -- the solitary and singularly beautiful woman ; the wonderful picture , growing beneath her hand ; the solemn silence , broken only by the deep , hollow murmur of the dimpling sea that sent its shimmer in at the window to meet the painted shimmer in a marine view framed on the wall , -- all these wove a spell about the intruder that temporarily held him a mute captive .