MORGAN.
His soul! Ay, marry! many a time and oft
I've seen the man's great heart stare from his eyes,
Just like a girl's, out at the crowing boy:
And yesterday it was he perch'd him fair
Upon his broad rough shoulder, like a lamb
Laid on the topmost reaches of a hill,
And so he bore him, all his face a-glow,
When heralds came with war-notes from the king;
At which he turn'd him soft—the startled babe
Still set astride, and looking fondly up,
Said he, "See! here's the only lord that sets
His foot upon my shoulder." The man's heart
Scarce beats, I warrant, now the child is dead.
MONK.
And hath he master'd aught his sorrow now,
Or still rides passion curbless through his soul?
MORGAN.
Ah! there, good Father, lies the chiefest woe,
For in the slaying of the hound his rage
Quite spent its force, and now I fear me much
His mind bath lost its olden empery.
MONK.
Nay! Death smites passion still upon the mouth,
And its grim shade is silence—'Tis no sign.
MORGAN.
But in this one act all his fury pass'd;
And turning softly from the dead child there,
Suffering none to touch it where it lay,
He sat him down in awful calmness nigh,
And gazed forth blankly like a sculptured face;
And when we fain would pass to take the child,
A strange wild voice still warns us back again,
"Hush! for the boy is sleeping." It would seem
He will not think that Death hath struck the babe,
But blinds his willing soul, and deems it sleep.