from it, and ever impell'd
To involve all things else in the anguish within it,
And on others inflict its own pangs!
At that minute
What pass'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell
The dark thoughts of man's heart, which the red glare of hell
Can illumine alone?
He stared wildly around
That lone place, so lonely! That silence! no sound
Reach'd that room, through the dark evening air, save drear
Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless and near!
It was midnight all round on the weird silent weather;
Deep midnight in him! They two,--alone and together,
Himself and that woman defenceless before him!
The triumph and bliss of his rival flash'd o'er him.
The abyss of his own black despair seem'd to ope
At his feet, with that awful exclusion of hope
Which Dante read over the city of doom.
All the Tarquin pass'd into his soul in the gloom,
And uttering words he dared never recall,
Words of insult and menace, he thunder'd down all
The brew'd storm-cloud within him: its flashes scorch'd blind
His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind
Of a reckless emotion beyond his control;
A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him. His soul
Surged up from that caldron of passion that hiss'd
And seeth'd in his heart.

VII.

He had thrown, and had miss'd
His last stake.

VIII.

For, transfigured, she rose from the place
Where he rested o'erawed: a saint's scorn on her face;
Such a dread vade retro was written in light
On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight,
Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know
If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had looked so,
She had needed no dagger next morning.
She rose
And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows
Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone,
And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.
There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable,
Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd--
"Farewell!
We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more
Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er.
Duc de Luvois, adieu!"
From