Lady Crom. R. No! There is not one of us he would hear save Elizabeth, and since the day before yesterday, as I tell you, she hath been in a raging fever, and delirious; and, to-morrow, you tell me, it is fixed that your cousin dies. Will not the Protector see you?
Flor. L. He will not!
Lady Crom. Alas! poor maid. I know not what to do.
Flor. Madam, where doth your daughter lie!—
Lady Crom. In my room, this way—why, you look sadly yourself—pale as a corpse.
Flor. Do I?—I would have it so. Think you it is an easy death when the heart bleeds inwardly?
Lady Crom. Hush! cease talking so, child!
Flor. I do remember, journeying hither once,
On horseback, that I saw a poor lad, slain
In some sad skirmish of these cruel wars;
There seem'd no wound, and so I stay'd by him,
Thinking he might live still. But, ever, whilst
I stretch'd to reach some trifling thing for aid,
His sullen head would slip from off my knee,
And his damp hair to earth would wander down,
Till I grew frighten'd thus to challenge Death,
And with the king of terrors idly play.—
Yet those pale lips deserted not the smile
Of froward, gay defiance, lingering there,
Like a tir'd truant's sleeping on the grass,
Mid the stray sun-beams of unsadden'd hope,
Dreaming of one perpetual holiday.
Lady Crom. And was he dead?—Tell me what came of him.
Flor. The silent marches of the stars had clos'd
The slow retreat of that calm summer noon,
Ere I compos'd his gentle limbs to rest,
And left him where he lay. No crimson wound,
No dark ensanguin'd stain did sully him:
Yet had some fatal missile reach'd his heart,
That bled, as mine does now, within, within!