XVII.

“Alas!” he thought, “how changed that mien! How changed these timid looks have been, Since years of guilt and of disguise Have steeled her brow, and armed her eyes! No more of virgin terror speaks The blood that mantles in her cheeks: Fierce and unfeminine, are there, Frenzy for joy, for grief despair: And I the cause—for whom were given Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven! Would,” thought he, as the picture grows, “I on its stalk had left the rose! Oh, why should man’s success remove The very charms that wake his love! Her convent’s peaceful solitude Is now a prison harsh and rude; And, pent within the narrow cell, How will her spirit chafe and swell! How brook the stern monastic laws! The penance how—and I the cause! Vigil and scourge—perchance even worse!” And twice he rose to cry, “To horse!” And twice his sovereign’s mandate came, Like damp upon a kindling flame; And twice he thought, “Gave I not charge She should be safe, though not at large? They durst not, for their island, shred One golden ringlet from her head.”