Thinking within myself I said: “Behold,
This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,
When Mary made a prey of her own son.”
Their sockets were like rings without the gems;
Whoever in the face of men reads ‘omo’
Might well in these have recognised the ‘m.’
Who would believe the odour of an apple,
Begetting longing, could consume them so,
And that of water, without knowing how?
I still was wondering what so famished them,
For the occasion not yet manifest
Of their emaciation and sad squalor;
And lo! from out the hollow of his head
His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;
Then cried aloud: “What grace to me is this?”
Never should I have known him by his look;
But in his voice was evident to me
That which his aspect had suppressed within it.
This spark within me wholly re-enkindled
My recognition of his altered face,
And I recalled the features of Forese.
“Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,”
Entreated he, “which doth my skin discolour,
Nor at default of flesh that I may have;
But tell me truth of thee, and who are those
Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;
Do not delay in speaking unto me.”
“That face of thine, which dead I once bewept,
Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,”
I answered him, “beholding it so changed!