LITMIR.BIZ

      "Go, and good angels guard thee is my prayer.

      Comnenus.– Good soldiers, Anna. In the arm of flesh

      Are we to trust. The Mother of the Gods,

      Prolific Mother, holiest Mother church,

      Hath banded heaven upon the side opposed.

      No matter, when such supplicants as thou

      Pray for us, other angels need we none."

      "Just as you came

      I moralised the matter of that change

      Which theologians call – how aptly, say —

      The quitting of a tenement."

      "Germanus. My noble lord, the Cæsarissa waits

      With infinite impatience to behold you:

      She bids me say so. Ah! most noble count!

      A fortunate man – the sunshine is upon you —

      Comnenus. Ay, sir, and wonderfully warm it makes me.

      Tell her I'm coming, sir, with speed."

      "Nor now, nor ever,

      Will I make bargains for a lady's love."

      "Comnenus. Change is youth's wonder:

      Such transmutations have I seen on man

      That fortune seemed a slow and stedfast power

      Compared with nature.

      Alexius. There is nought thou'st seen

      More altered than art thou.

      I speak not of thy change in outward favour,

      But thou art changed in heart.

      Comnenus. Ay, hearts change too:

      Mine has grown sprightly, has it not, and hard?

      I ride it now with spurs; else, else, Alexius —

      Well is it said the best of life is childhood.

      Life is a banquet where the best's first served,

      And when the guest is cloyed comes oil and garlick.

      Alexius. Hast thou forgotten how it was thy wont

      To muse the hours away along this shore —

      These very rippled sands?

      Comnenus. The sands are here,

      But not the foot-prints. Wouldst thou trace them now?

      A thousand tides and storms have dashed them out.

      … I have no care for beauty.

      Seest thou yon rainbow based and glassed on ocean?

      I look on that as on a lovely thing,

      But not a thing of promise."

      "Alexius. What is this carved upon the rock?

      Comnenus. I know not:

      But Time has ta'en it for a lover's scrawl;

      He's razed it, razed it.

      Alexius. No, not quite; look here.

      I take it for a lover's.

      Comnenus. What! there's some talk

      Of balmy breath, and hearts pierced through and through

      With eyes' miraculous brightness – vows ne'er broken,

      Until the church had sealed them – charms loved madly,

      Until it be a sin to love them not —

      And kisses ever sweet, till they be innocent —

      But that your lover's not put down?

      Alexius. No, none of it.

      There are but two words.

      Comnenus. That's succinct; what are they?

      Alexius. 'Alas, Irene!' Why thy looks are now —

      "This is the very earth that covers her,

      And lo! we trample it like common clay!

      … When I last stood here

      Disguised, to see a lowly girl laid down

      Into her early grave, there was such light

      As now doth show it, but a bleaker air,

      Seeing it was December. 'Tis most strange;

      I can remember now each circumstance

      Which then I scarce was conscious of; like words

      That leave upon the still susceptive sense

      A message undelivered till the mind

      Awakes to apprehensiveness and takes it.

      'Twas o'er – the muttered unattended rite,

      And the few friends she had beside myself

      Had risen and gone; I had not knelt, but stood

      With a dull gaze of stupor as the mould

      Was shovelled over, and the broken sods

      Fitted together. Then some idle boys,

      Who had assisted at the covering in,

      Ran off in sport, trailing the shovels with them,

      Rattling upon the gravel; and the sexton

      Flattened the last sods down, and knocked his spade

      Against a neighbouring tombstone to shake off

      The clinging soil, – with a contented air,

      Even as a ditcher who has done his work.

      … Oh Christ!

      How that which was the life's life of our being

      Can pass away, and we recall it thus!"