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ELSIE. I HAVE one thing to ask of you.
PRINCE HENRY. What is it? | |
It is already granted.
ELSIE. Promise me, | |
| When we are gone from here, and on our way | |
| Are journeying to Salerno, you will not, | |
| By word or deed, endeavor to dissuade me | 5 |
| And turn me from my purpose; but remember | |
| That as a pilgrim to the Holy City | |
| Walks unmolested, and with thoughts of pardon | |
| Occupied wholly, so would I approach | |
| The gates of Heaven, in this great jubilee, | 10 |
| 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? | 15 |
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PRINCE HENRY. If ever we depart upon this journey, | |
| So long to one or both of us, I promise. | |
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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 | 20 |
| The waters of eternal life, to bid me | |
| Drink the polluted puddles of this world? | |
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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 | 25 |
| A breath disturbs the balance; and that scale | |
| In which we throw our hearts preponderates, | |
| And the other, like and empty one, flies up, | |
| And is accounted vanity and air! | |
| To me the thought of death is terrible, | 30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| O pure in heart! from thy sweet dust shall grow | |
| Lilies, upon whose petals will be written | |
| “Ave Maria” in characters of gold! | |
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