Lal.  Now, Earl of Leicester! 
                  Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts
                  I feel thou lovest me truly.

Pol.  O Lalage!
               (throwing himself upon his knee.)
                  And lovest thou me?

Lal.  Hist! hush! within the gloom
                  Of yonder trees methought a figure passed—­
                  A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless—­
                  Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.
               (walks across and returns.)
                  I was mistaken—­’twas but a giant bough
                  Stirred by the autumn wind.  Politian!

Pol.  My Lalage—­my love! why art thou moved? 
                  Why dost thou turn so pale?  Not Conscience self,
                  Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,
                  Should shake the firm spirit thus.  But the night wind
                  Is chilly—­and these melancholy boughs
                  Throw over all things a gloom.

Lal.  Politian! 
                  Thou speakest to me of love.  Knowest thou the land
                  With which all tongues are busy—­a land new found—­
                  Miraculously found by one of Genoa—­
                  A thousand leagues within the golden west? 
                  A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,—­
                  And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,
                  And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds
                  Of Heaven untrammelled flow—­which air to breathe
                  Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter
                  In days that are to come?

Pol.  Oh, wilt thou—­wilt thou
                  Fly to that Paradise—­my Lalage, wilt thou
                  Fly thither with me?  There Care shall be forgotten,
                  And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all. 
                  And life shall then be mine, for I will live
                  For thee, and in thine eyes—­and thou shalt be
                  No more a mourner—­but the radiant Joys
                  Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope
                  Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee
                  And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,
                  My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,
                  My all;—­oh, wilt thou—­wilt thou, Lalage,
                  Fly thither with me?

Lal.  A deed is to be done—­
                  Castiglione lives!

Pol.  And he shall die!

(Exit.)