Are like your own shut hearts. Have ye not seen
Head above head there raised to gaze on him?
On your own thresholds have ye stood with shouts!
Ye! whom I loved, because ye honoured him.
Is he become a tyrant that ye shrink
From sharing in his fall? Ye loved him once.
Oh, these weak hands! could ye but grasp a sword,
And ye fond arms! that have so often held
The hero prisoned in their soft restraint,
Can ye do nothing for him?
3d Citizen.
Yonder is Alba's guard: we must away.
Brackenberg.
Come, Clara, this is madness: let us go.
Clara.
And will you make no effort? you too stood
One of the many in the shouting crowd;
I, only, hid my face, or timidly
Glanced through th' half-opened casement, though my heart
Beat higher than your own, and far more true.
Brackenberg.
Patience, sweet Clara, we are left alone.
Look round—these public streets you used to tread
Only to church on the calm Sabbath morn;
Then was your veil drawn closely round, your eyes
Sought but the ground, and if I spake you blushed—
Though but the kindly greeting of a friend—
An old familiar friend. What can have changed
The downcast and the timid one?
Clara.
Despair!
But let us home; home—where is now my home?
(To be continued.)
