that life were but spared... yet a word might restore him!
The boy's broken love for the niece of Eugene!
Its pathos: the girl's love for him; how, half slain
In his tent, she had found him: won from him the tale;
Sought to nurse back his life; found her efforts still fail
Beaten back by a love that was stronger than life;
Of how bravely till then he had stood in that strife
Wherein England and France in their best blood, at last,
Had bathed from remembrance the wounds of the past.
And shall nations be nobler than men? Are not great
Men the models of nations? For what is a state
But the many's confused imitation of one?
Shall he, the fair hero of France, on the son
Of his ally seek vengeance, destroying perchance
An innocent life,--here, when England and France
Have forgiven the sins of their fathers of yore,
And baptized a new hope in their sons' recent gore?
She went on to tell how the boy had clung still
To life, for the sake of life's uses, until
From his weak hands the strong effort dropp'd, stricken down
By the news that the heart of Constance, like his own,
Was breaking beneath...
But there "Hold!" he exclaim'd,
Interrupting, "Forbear!"... his whole face was inflamed
With the heart's swarthy thunder which yet, while she spoke,
Had been gathering silent--at last the storm broke
In grief or in wrath...
"'Tis to him, then," he cried,...
Checking suddenly short the tumultuous stride,
"That I owe these late greetings--for him you are here--
For his sake you seek me--for him, it is clear,
You have deign'd at the last to bethink you again
Of this long-forgotten existence!"
"Eugene!"
"Ha! fool that I was!"... he went on,... "and just now,
While you spoke yet, my heart was beginning to grow
Almost boyish again, almost sure of ONE friend!
Yet this was the meaning of all--this the end!
Be it so! There's a sort of slow justice (admit!)
In this--that the word that man's finger hath writ
In fire on my heart, I return him at last.
Let him learn that word--Never!"
"Ah, still to the past
Must the present be vassal?" she said. "In the hour
We last parted I urged you to put forth t