"Albeit no spoiler I; it was no wrong
To repossess what was by force obtained:"
At this the tyrant loosed his threatening tongue,
Long-stifled passion raging unrestrained:
No longer hope that pardon may be gained,
Beautiful face, high spirit, bashful heart!
Vainly would Love, since mercy is disdained,
And Anger flings his most envenomed dart,
In aid of you his else protecting shield impart!
Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay
Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining.
Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining:
This she endured in silence unrepining,
Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining,
Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.
The crowd collect; the sentence is divulged;
With them Olindo comes, by pity swayed;
It might be that the youth the thought indulged,
What if his own Sophronia were the maid!
There stand the busy officers arrayed
For the last act, here swift the flames arise;
But when the pinioned beauty stands displayed
To the full gaze of his inquiring eyes,--
'_T is_ she! he bursts through all, the crowd before him flies.
Aloud he cries: "To her, oh not to her
The crime belongs, though frenzy may misplead!
She planned not, dared not, could not, king, incur
Sole and unskilled the guilt of such a deed!
How lull the guards, or by what process speed
The sacred Image from its vaulted cell?
The theft was mine! and 't is my right to bleed!"
Alas for him! how wildly and how well
He loved the unloving maid, let this avowal tell.
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