LEONARDO.
'Is it madness?'

CAMILLA.
'Men!
'Tis Reason, but beyond your ken.
There lives a light that none can view
Whose thoughts are brutish:--seen by few,
The few have therefore light divine
Their visions are God's legions!--sign,
I give you; for we stand alone,
And you are frozen to the bone.
Your palsied hands refuse their swords.
A sharper edge is in my words,
A deadlier wound is in my cry.
Yea, tho' you slay us, do we die?
In forcing us to bear the worst,
You made of us Immortals first.
Away! and trouble not my sight.'

Chorus of Cavaliers: RUDOLFO, ROMUALDO, ARNOLDO, and others.

'She moves us with an angel's might.
What if his host outnumber ours!
'Tis heaven that gives victorious powers.'

[They draw their steel. ORSO, simulating gratitude for their
devotion to him, addresses them as to pacify their friendly ardour.]

MICHIELLA to LEONARDO (supplicating).
'Ever my friend I shall I appeal
In vain to see thy flashing steel?'

LEONARDO (finally resolved).
'Traitress! pray, rather, it may rest,
Or its first home will be thy breast.'

Chorus of Bridal Company.
'The flowers from bright Aurora's head
We pluck'd to strew a happy bed,
Shall they be dipp'd in blood ere night?
Woe to the nuptials! woe the sight!'

Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and the others, advance toward Camillo.
Michiella calls to them encouragingly that it were well for the deed to
be done by their hands. They bid Camillo to direct their lifted swords
upon his enemies. Leonardo joins them. Count Orso, after a burst of
upbraidings, accepts Camillo's offer of peace, and gives his bond to quit
the castle. Michiella, gazing savagely at Camilla, entreats her for an
utterance of her triumphant scorn. She assures Camilla that she knows her
feelings accurately.

'Now you think that I am overwhelmed; that I shall have a restless night,
and lie, after all my crying's over, with my hair spread out on my
pillow, on either side my face, like green moss of a withered waterfall:
you think you will bestow a little serpent of a gift from my stolen
treasures to comfort me. You will comfort me with a lock of Camillo's
hair, that I may have it on my breast to-night, and dr