Cecco: When Antonio——
Charles: Cease: but a whisper of his name and I
Am frenzy—frenzy—though the stillness burns
And bursts with it!
(Cecco steps back. A pause.)
Charles: The sun, how hangs it now?
Cecco (going to window): Above the bloody waving of the sea,
Eager to dip.
Charles (staggering up): Ah, I was in a foam——
Bitten by hounds of fury and despair!
Did you not, Fulvia, pleading for them say
They quailed but would not flee and leave me waste?
Cecco: She is not here, my liege.
Charles: Antonio!
Ah, boy! thou ever wast to me as wafts
Of light, of song, of summer on the hills!
Soft now I feel thy baby arms about me,
And all the burgeon of thy youth, ere proud
And cruel years grew in me, comes again
On wings and stealing winds of memory!
Cecco: O, then, sir——
Charles: Yes. Fly, fly! and stay the guard!
He must not—Ah!—down fearful fathoms, down
Into the roar!
(Cecco starts. He stops him.)
Yet he has flung me from
Immeasurable peaks, and I have sunk
Forevermore beneath hope's horizon.
Who falls so close the grave can rise no more.