The world is but one great reechoing,
             And all its harvest is but seed from seed. 
             But she was truth itself, ev’n though deformed,
             And all she did proceeded from herself,
             A-sudden, unexpected, and unlearned. 
             Since her I saw I felt myself alive,
             And to the dreary sameness of my life
             ’Twas only she gave character and form. 
             They tell that in Arab desert wastes
             The wand’rer, long tormented in the sands,
             Long tortured with the sun’s relentless glare,
             Some time may find a blooming island’s green,
             Surrounded by the surge of arid waves;
             There flowers bloom, there trees bestow their shade,
             The breath of herbs mounts soothing in the breeze
             And forms a second heav’n, arched ’neath the first. 
             Forsooth the serpent coils among the brush;
             A famished beast, tormented by like thirst,
             Perchance comes, too, to slake it at this spring;
             Yet, tired and worn, the wand’rer doth rejoice,
             Sucks in with greedy lips the cooling draught,
             And sinks down in the rank luxuriant growth. 
             Luxuriant growth!  In faith!  I’ll see her now—­
             See once again that proud and beauteous form,
             That mouth which drew in breath and breathed out life,
             And which, now silenced ever, evermore,
             Accuses me of guarding her so ill.

ESTHER.  Go not, O Sire!  Now that the deed is done,
             Let it be done.  The mourning be for us! 
             Estrange thyself not from thy people, Sire.

KING.  Think’st thou?  The King I am—­thou know’st full well. 
             She suffered outrage, but myself no less. 
             Justice, and punishment of ev’ry wrong
             I swore upon my coronation day,
             And I will keep my oath until the death. 
             To do this, I must make me strong and hard,
             For to my anger they will sure oppose
             All that the human breast holds high and dear—­
             Mem’ries from out my boyhood’s early days,
             My manhood’s first sweet taste of woman’s love,
             Friendship and gratitude and mercy, too;
             My whole life, roughly bundled into one,
             Will stand, as ’twere against me, fully armed,
             And challenge me to combat with myself. 
             I, therefore, from myself must first take leave. 
             Her image, as I see it here and there,
             On every wall, in this and every corner
             Shows her to me but in her early bloom,
             With all her weaknesses, with all her charm. 
             I’ll