To prosecute due vengeance on their souls!
Hear me, my friends; but as ye love your lives,
Reply not to me; hearken and stand amaz'd.
When I, as is my wont, O fond delight!
Went forth to seek my daughter, now my death--
Within her chamber, as I thought, she was;
But there I found her not--I deemed then
For her disport she and her maidens were
Down to the garden walk'd to comfort them;
And thinking thus, it came into my mind
There all alone to tarry her return:
And thereupon I, weary, threw myself
Upon her widow's bed, for so I thought,
And in the curtain wrapp'd my cursed head.
Thus as I lay, anon I might behold
Out of the vault, up through her chamber floor,
My daughter Gismund bringing hand in hand
The County Palurin. Alas! it is too true;
At her bed's feet this traitor made me see
Her shame, his treason, and my deadly grief--
Her princely body yielded to this thief;
The high despite whereof so wounded me
That, trance-like, as a senseless stone I lay;
For neither wit nor tongue could use the mean
T'express the passions of my pained heart.
Forceless, perforce, I sank down to this pain,
As greedy famine doth constrain the hawk
Piecemeal to rend and tear the yielding prey:
So far'd it with me in that heavy stound.
But now what shall I do? how may I seek