Methinks I hear the Patriarch's warning voice—

'Though this one breast, by miracle, return,

No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears

Within it some dead dove-like thing as dear,

Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed!'

How many chaste and noble sister-fames

Wanted the extricating hand, so lie

Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above

The welter, plucked from the world's calumny,

Stupidity, simplicity,—who cares?