ose rejoice who still have power to hope.
The time that puts fresh youth in all the world
Brings naught to me; to me the past is all,
My hopes, my joys are with the things that were.

OLGA.
Dost thou still mourn thy son--still, still lament
The sovereignty which thou has lost? Does time,
Which pours a balm on every wounded heart,
Lose all its potency with thee alone?
Thou wert the empress of this mighty realm,
The mother of a blooming son. He was
Snatched from thee by a dreadful destiny;
Into this dreary convent wert thou thrust,
Here on the verge of habitable earth.
Full sixteen times since that disastrous day
The face of nature hath renewed its youth;
Still have I seen no change come over thine,
That looked a grave amid a blooming world.
Thou'rt like some moonless image, carved in stone
By sculptor's chisel, that doth ever keep
The selfsame fixed unalterable mien.

MARFA.
Yes, time, fell time, hath signed and set me up
As a memorial of my dreadful fate.
I will not be at peace, will not forget.
That soul must be of poor and shallow stamp
Which takes a cure from time--a recompense
For what can never be compensated!
Nothing shall buy my sorrow from me. No,
As heaven's vault still goes with the wanderer,
Girds and environs him with boundless grasp,
Turn where he will, by sea or land, so goes
My anguish with me, wheresoe'er I turn;
It hems me round, like an unbounded sea;
My ceaseless tears have failed to drain its depths.

OLGA.
Oh, see! what news can yonder boy have brought,
The sisters round him throng so eagerly?
He comes from distant shores, where homes abound,
And brings us tidings from the land of men.
The sea is clear, the highways free once more.
Art thou not curious to learn his news?
Though to the world we are as good as dead,
Yet of its changes willingly we hear,
And, safe upon the shore, with wonder mark
The roar and ferment of the trampling waves.

[NUNS come down the stage with a FISHER BOY.

XENIA--HELENA.
Speak, speak, and tell us all the news you bring.

ALEXIA.
Relate what's passing in the world beyond.

FISHER BOY.
Good, pious ladies, give me time to speak!

XENIA.
Is't war--or peace?

ALEXIA.
Who's now upon the throne?

FISHER BOY.
A ship is to Archangel just come in
From the north pole, where everything is ice.

OLGA.
How came a vessel into that wild sea?

FISHER BOY.
It is an English merchantman, and it
Has found a new way out to get to us.

ALEX