10. 
They pause, they blush, they gaze,—­a gathering shout
Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams
Of a tempestuous sea:—­that sudden rout
One checked, who, never in his mildest dreams
Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams 4535
Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed
Had seared with blistering ice—­but he misdeems
That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed
Inly for self,—­thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,

11. 
And others, too, thought he was wise to see, 4540
In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine;
In love and beauty, no divinity.—­
Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine
Like a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne,
He said, and the persuasion of that sneer 4545
Rallied his trembling comrades—­’Is it mine
To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear
A woman?  Heaven has sent its other victim here.’

12. 
‘Were it not impious,’ said the King, ’to break
Our holy oath?’—­’Impious to keep it, say!’ 4550
Shrieked the exulting Priest:—­’Slaves, to the stake
Bind her, and on my head the burden lay
Of her just torments:—­at the Judgement Day
Will I stand up before the golden throne
Of Heaven, and cry, “To Thee did I betray 4555
An infidel; but for me she would have known
Another moment’s joy! the glory be thine own."’

13. 
They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,
Pausing in breathless silence.  Cythna sprung
From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade 4560
Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among
Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung
Upon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow. 
A piteous sight, that one so fair and young,
The clasp of such a fearful death should woo 4565
With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.

14. 
The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear
From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews
Which feed Spring’s earliest buds, hung gathered there,
Frozen by doubt,—­alas! they could not choose 4570
But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse
To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;
And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues
Of her quick lips, even as a weary child
Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild, 4575

15. 
She won them, though unwilling, her to bind
Near me, among the snakes.  When there had fled
One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,
She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,
But each upon the other’s countenance fed 4580
Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil
Which doth divide the living and the dead
Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,—­
All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.—­