[Approaches the bed, and gazes on LILIA silently with
clasped hands; then returns to the window.]
She sleeps so peacefully!
O God, I thank thee: thou hast sent her sleep.
Lord, let it sink into her heart and brain.
Enter Nurse.
Oh, nurse, I'm glad you're come! She is asleep.
You must be near her when she wakes again.
I think she'll be herself. But do be careful—
Right cautious how you tell her I am here.
Sweet woman-child, may God be in your sleep!
[JULIAN goes.]
Nurse.
Bless her white face, she looks just like my daughter,
That's now a saint in heaven! Just those thin cheeks,
And eyelids hardly closed over her eyes!—
Dream on, poor darling! you are drinking life
From the breast of sleep. And yet I fain would see
Your shutters open, for I then should know
Whether the soul had drawn her curtains back,
To peep at morning from her own bright windows.
Ah! what a joy is ready, waiting her,
To break her fast upon, if her wild dreams
Have but betrayed her secrets honestly!
Will he not give thee love as dear as thine!
SCENE XI.—A hilly road. STEPHEN, trudging alone, pauses to look around him.
Stephen.
Not a footprint! not a trace that a blood-hound
would nose at! But Stephen shall be acknowledged
good dog and true. If I had him within stick-length—mind
thy head, brother Julian! Thou hast not
hair enough to protect it, and thy tonsure shall not.
Neither shalt thou tarry at Jericho.—It is a poor man
that leaves no trail; and if thou wert poor, I would not
follow thee.
[Sings.]
Oh, many a hound is stretching out
His two legs or his four,
And the saddled horses stand about
The court and the castle door,
Till out come the baron, jolly and stout,
To hunt the bristly boar!