When thus this spirit fades within their clasp? 
    BERTHO!—­that scornful Queen did tell me this. 
    And yet I did not comprehend her words. 
    There is no warmth nor beauty in this land! 
    Its people have no hearts—­know not of love—­
    Their thoughts are colder than their beds of snow. 
    Indeed, this is no world!—­but some vain dream,
    Troubling my sleep, and I cannot awake. 
    Love then, is a deceitful fantasy—­
    BERTHO is dead—­is dead—­and yet not dead! 
    Life is not life”—­

                        Her wild, distrustful words
    Here ended, as she saw the bitterness
    Which stormed across the spirit’s anguished face:—­

    “Forbear, poor child! thy pitiful complaints! 
    When through these long years of distasteful toil
    I thought of thee, unceasing, day and night,
    Calling on heaven to bend thy steps towards me,
    I thought not that this spirit, weary, worn,
    And from the covering of its body torn,
    Its feeling could retain and substance lose. 
    Fool that I was! to sigh for human love! 
    Why art thou here to madden me with looks,—­
    Those womanly, caressing looks which fill
    My soul with wild desires!  Back, to thy home,
    In that gold-girdled circle of daylight,
    That island of elysian loveliness,
    Where thou and I did’st one time idly dream! 
    There breathe the passionate breath of orange-flowers—­
    Walk in the sunlight till thy brows are flushed
    With its warm kisses—­plunge thy snowy feet
    In the embracing waves and silver sand—­
    Shake down magnolia-blossoms on thy hair—­
    Answer the nightingales’ delicious song
    With thy sweet cries—­and, on bright eves, look up
    And charm the moon upon her lingering way
    With that soft fire of thine entrancing eyes! 
    Thou wilt not for regret or tears find time. 
    Some lover, clothed in human dignity
    And tangible robes of life, will haunt thy steps,
    Drawing up, with magnetic looks, the smiles
    Which lie deep down in thy now tearful orbs;
    And, wiling from their blissful hiding-place,
    The bashful dimples to thy blushing cheeks,
    And,—­it may be—­with human eloquence,
    Beguile thy hand to rest within his own,
    Sitting, as we have sat,—­thy glossy hair
    Rippling in golden waves across his breast.”

    “Can he be mad as well as dead?” the girl
    Murmured aside! and then her sorrowing brow
    She lifted proudly, while a sudden fire
    Sprang to her lips and eyes—­her trembling voice
    Steadied itself on her unfaltering love.—­
    “Forgive me, BERTHO, that my woman’s heart,
    Finding thee thus, should, for an instant, only,
    Shrink back from thee in awe and deep regret. 
    My love, which has endured so much, grows strong