Occupied wholly, so would I approach

The gates of Heaven, in this great jubilee,
With my petition, putting off from me

All thoughts of earth, as shoes from off my feet.
Promise me this.

PRINCE HENRY.

Thy words fall from thy lips

Like roses from the lips of Angelo: and angels

Might stoop to pick them up!

ELSIE.

Will you not promise?

PRINCE HENRY.

If ever we depart upon this journey,

So long to one or both of us, I promise.

ELSIE.

Shall we not go, then? Have you lifted me Into the air, only to hurl me back

Wounded upon the ground? and offered me The waters of eternal life, to bid me

Drink the polluted puddles of this world?

PRINCE HENRY.

O Elsie! what a lesson thou dost teach me!
The life which is, and that which is to come,
Suspended hang in such nice equipoise
A breath disturbs the balance; and that scale
In which we throw our hearts preponderates,
And the other, like an empty one, flies up,
And is accounted vanity and air!

To me the thought of death is terrible,
Having such hold on life. To thee it is not
So much even as the lifting of a latch;
Only a step into the open air

Out of a tent already luminous

With light that shines through its transparent walls!

O pure in heart! from thy sweet dust shall

grow

Lilies, upon whose petals will be written

"Ave Maria" in characters of gold!

III.

A STREET IN STRASBURG.

Night. PRINCE HENRY wandering alone, wrapped in a

cloak.

PRINCE HENRY.

STILL is the night. The sound of feet
Has died away from the empty street,
And like an artisan, bending down
His head on his anvil, the dark town
Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet.
Sleepless and restless, I alone,

In the dusk and damp of these walls of stone,
Wander and weep in my remorse!

CRIER OF THE DEAD, ringing a bell.

Wake! wake!

All ye that sleep!