ROSALIND: 
Yes, speak.  The faintest stars are scarcely shorn
Of their thin beams by that delusive morn
Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
Of early love, soon lost in total night. 585

HELEN: 
Alas!  Italian winds are mild,
But my bosom is cold—­wintry cold—­
When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,
Soft music, my poor brain is wild,
And I am weak like a nursling child, 590
Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

ROSALIND: 
Weep not at thine own words, though they must make
Me weep.  What is thy tale?

HELEN: 
I fear ’twill shake
Thy gentle heart with tears.  Thou well
Rememberest when we met no more, 595
And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
That friendless caution pierced me sore
With grief; a wound my spirit bore
Indignantly, but when he died,
With him lay dead both hope and pride. 600
Alas! all hope is buried now. 
But then men dreamed the aged earth
Was labouring in that mighty birth,
Which many a poet and a sage
Has aye foreseen—­the happy age 605
When truth and love shall dwell below
Among the works and ways of men;
Which on this world not power but will
Even now is wanting to fulfil.

Among mankind what thence befell 610
Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
When Liberty’s dear paean fell
’Mid murderous howls.  To Lionel,
Though of great wealth and lineage high,
Yet through those dungeon walls there came 615
Thy thrilling light, O Liberty! 
And as the meteor’s midnight flame
Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
Flashed on his visionary youth,
And filled him, not with love, but faith, 620
And hope, and courage mute in death;
For love and life in him were twins,
Born at one birth:  in every other
First life then love its course begins,
Though they be children of one mother; 625
And so through this dark world they fleet
Divided, till in death they meet;
But he loved all things ever.  Then
He passed amid the strife of men,
And stood at the throne of armed power 630
Pleading for a world of woe: 
Secure as one on a rock-built tower
O’er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,
’Mid the passions wild of human kind
He stood, like a spirit calming them; 635
For, it was said, his words could bind
Like music the lulled crowd, and stem
That torrent of unquiet dream
Which mortals truth and reason deem,
But is revenge and fear and pride. 640