22. 
She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet
When human steps were heard:—­he moved nor spoke, 1910
Nor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to meet
The gaze of strangers—­our loud entrance woke
The echoes of the hall, which circling broke
The calm of its recesses,—­like a tomb
Its sculptured walls vacantly to the stroke 1915
Of footfalls answered, and the twilight’s gloom
Lay like a charnel’s mist within the radiant dome.

23. 
The little child stood up when we came nigh;
Her lips and cheeks seemed very pale and wan,
But on her forehead, and within her eye 1920
Lay beauty, which makes hearts that feed thereon
Sick with excess of sweetness; on the throne
She leaned;—­the King, with gathered brow, and lips
Wreathed by long scorn, did inly sneer and frown
With hue like that when some great painter dips 1925
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

24. 
She stood beside him like a rainbow braided
Within some storm, when scarce its shadows vast
From the blue paths of the swift sun have faded;
A sweet and solemn smile, like Cythna’s, cast 1930
One moment’s light, which made my heart beat fast,
O’er that child’s parted lips—­a gleam of bliss,
A shade of vanished days,—­as the tears passed
Which wrapped it, even as with a father’s kiss
I pressed those softest eyes in trembling tenderness. 1935

25. 
The sceptred wretch then from that solitude
I drew, and, of his change compassionate,
With words of sadness soothed his rugged mood. 
But he, while pride and fear held deep debate,
With sullen guile of ill-dissembled hate 1940
Glared on me as a toothless snake might glare: 
Pity, not scorn I felt, though desolate
The desolator now, and unaware
The curses which he mocked had caught him by the hair.

26. 
I led him forth from that which now might seem 1945
A gorgeous grave:  through portals sculptured deep
With imagery beautiful as dream
We went, and left the shades which tend on sleep
Over its unregarded gold to keep
Their silent watch.—­The child trod faintingly, 1950
And as she went, the tears which she did weep
Glanced in the starlight; wildered seemed she,
And, when I spake, for sobs she could not answer me.

27. 
At last the tyrant cried, ’She hungers, slave! 
Stab her, or give her bread!’—­It was a tone 1955
Such as sick fancies in a new-made grave
Might hear.  I trembled, for the truth was known;
He with this child had thus been left alone,
And neither had gone forth for food,—­but he
In mingled pride and awe cowered near his throne, 1960
And she a nursling of captivity
Knew nought beyond those walls, nor what such change might be.