In this poem we see that desolation and despair have sealed the fountain of tears in the widowed wife—that the light of love has gone from her life and returns only through the influence of childhood, with all its tender links and memories.
The last song, “Ask Me No More,” is like the sestette in a sonnet—the application of all the preceding. These influences of the family, with all its sacred ties and affections, are too much for the strong and noble soul of the Princess, who throws aside all theories of intellectual independence for woman, and, yielding to the impulse of love and affection, proclaims the triumph of the womanly elements in her nature in the following sweet and tender lines:
“Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answered thee?
Ask me no more.
“Ask me no more; what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!