Broke, and therewith the whole device gave way,
The grand ideal she had watched so long:
As if a tower should fall, and on the plain
Only a scathed and broken pile remain.
But in its stead she would not measure yet
The counter-chance, nor deem this sole attaint
Made the Prince less than one in whom ’twas set
To prove him man. “I held him as a saint,”
She thought, “no other:—of all men alone
My blameless one! Too high my faith had flown: