Cease to lament! I can foresee
That thou hereafter known shalt be,
Among the men who follow me,
As Simon the Canaanite!
EPILOGUE
In the after part of the day
Will be represented another play,
Of the Passion of our Blessed Lord,
Beginning directly after Nones!
At the close of which we shall accord,
By way of benison and reward,
The sight of a holy Martyr's bones!
IV
THE ROAD TO HIRSCHAU
PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with their attendants on horseback.
ELSIE.
Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city,
impatiently bearing
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate,
of doing and daring!
PRINCE HENRY.
This life of ours is a wild æolian harp of many
a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,
as of souls in pain.
ELSIE.
Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart
that aches and bleeds with the stigma
Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ,
and can comprehend its dark enigma.
PRINCE HENRY.
Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care
of what may betide,
Else why am I travelling here beside thee,
a demon that rides by an angel's side?