SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
Gurgles through straitened banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love. They passed the water 215
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.
XXVIII
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness—is ill at peace 220
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipped their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.
XXIX
They told their sister how, with sudden speed, 225
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands; 230
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow.
And the next day will be a day of sorrow,
XXX
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on.
And then, instead of love, O misery 1 235
She brooded o'er the luxury alone :
His image in the dusk she seemed to see,
139