[♦] And yet I know not how to get the crown,

For many lives stand between me and home:

And I,—like one lost in a thorny wood,

[175] That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,

Seeking a way and straying from the way;

Not knowing how to find the open air,

But toiling desperately to find it out,—

Torment myself to catch the English crown:

180 And from that torment I will free myself,

Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.