Ros. 
     Look, look!  Unless my fancy misconceive
     With twilight—­down among the rocks there, Fife—­
     Some human dwelling, surely—­
     Or think you but a rock torn from the rocks
     In some convulsion like to-day’s, and perch’d
     Quaintly among them in mock-masonry?

     Fife. 
     Most likely that, I doubt.

     Ros. 
     No, no—­for look! 
     A square of darkness opening in it—­

     Fife. 
     Oh, I don’t half like such openings!—­

     Ros. 
     Like the loom
     Of night from which she spins her outer gloom—­

     Fife. 
     Lord, Madam, pray forbear this tragic vein
     In such a time and place—­

     Ros. 
     And now again
     Within that square of darkness, look! a light
     That feels its way with hesitating pulse,
     As we do, through the darkness that it drives
     To blacken into deeper night beyond.

     Fife. 
     In which could we follow that light’s example,
     As might some English Bardolph with his nose,
     We might defy the sunset—­Hark, a chain!

     Ros. 
     And now a lamp, a lamp!  And now the hand
     That carries it.

     Fife. 
     Oh, Lord! that dreadful chain!

     Ros. 
     And now the bearer of the lamp; indeed
     As strange as any in Arabian tale,
     So giant-like, and terrible, and grand,
     Spite of the skin he’s wrapt in.

     Fife. 
     Why, ’tis his own: 
     Oh, ’tis some wild man of the woods; I’ve heard
     They build and carry torches—­

     Ros. 
     Never Ape
     Bore such a brow before the heavens as that—­
     Chain’d as you say too!—­

     Fife. 
     Oh, that dreadful chain!

     Ros. 
     And now he sets the lamp down by his side,
     And with one hand clench’d in his tangled hair
     And with a sigh as if his heart would break—­

     (During this Segismund has entered from the fortress, with a
          torch.)

     Segismund. 
     Once more the storm has roar’d itself away,
     Splitting the crags of God as it retires;
     But sparing still what it should only blast,
     This guilty piece of human handiwork,
     And all that are within it.  Oh, how oft,
     How oft, within or here abroad, have I
     Waited, and in the whisper of my heart
     Pray’d for the slanting hand of heaven to strike
     The blow myself I dared not, out of fear
     Of that Hereafter, worse, they say, than here,
     Plunged headlong in, but, till dismissal waited,
     To wipe at last all sorrow from men’s eyes,
     And make this heavy dispensation clear. 
     Thus have I borne till now, and still endure,
     Crouching in sullen impotence day by day,