| |
PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with their attendants on horseback.
ELSIE. ONWARD and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently bearing | |
| Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing and daring! | |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. This life of ours is a wild æolian harp of many a joyous strain, | |
| But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain. | |
| |
ELSIE. Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart that aches and bleeds with the stigma | 5 |
| Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, and can comprehend its dark enigma. | |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care of what may betide, | |
| Else why am I travelling here beside thee, a demon that rides by an angel’s side? | |
| |
ELSIE. All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog under the creaking wain | |
| Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward the horses toil and strain. | 10 |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the wagoner laughs with the landlord’s daughter, | |
| While out of the dripping trough the horses distend their leathern sides with water. | |
| |
ELSIE. All through life there are wayside inns, where man may refresh his soul with love; | |
| Even the lowest may quench his thirst at rivulets fed by springs from above. | |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. Yonder, where rises the cross of stone, our journey along the highway ends, | 15 |
| And over the fields, by a bridle path, down into the broad green valley descends. | |
| |
ELSIE. I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten road with its dust and heat; | |
| The air will be sweeter far, and the turf will be softer under our horses’ feet. They turn down a green lane. | |
| |
ELSIE. Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley stretching for miles below | |
| Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lightest snow. | 20 |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. Over our heads a white cascade is gleaming against the distant hill; | |
| We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it hangs like a banner when winds are still. | |
| |
ELSIE. Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and cool the sound of the brook by our side! | |
| What is this castle that rises above us, and lords it over a land so wide? | |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. It is the home of the Counts of Calva; well have I known these scenes of old, | 25 |
| Well I remember each tower and turret, remember the brooklet, the wood, and the wold. | |
| |
ELSIE. Hark! from the little village below us the bells of the church are ringing for rain! | |
| Priests and peasants in long procession come forth and kneel on the arid plain. | |
| |
PRINCE HENRY. They have not long to wait, for I see in the south uprising a little cloud, | |
| That before the sun shall be set will cover the sky above us as with a shroud. They pass on. | 30 |
| |
