Cor. Would Death might choose me out as willing prey! Virginia. Dear one, thy voice is weary like the world, Which is so old and heavy with its years; And yet thine eyes are bright, undimmed by tears. Cor. Bright with the pain that kills by slow degrees. Ah! for Apollo's pestilential dart, Or but to see the shears of Atropos[47] Flash in Diana's beams. Virginia (softly). We loved her light, Thou—thou and I, when love was all in life, And those, our own, the twain, Icilius And brave Sicinius—"Ah, God! Ah, God!" Thus cried he, my beloved, as he sank Prone at my feet, a tyrant's prisoner.

[46]

[47]

[Breaks from Cornelia's grasp and glides in anguish to the curtained doorway on the right.

Icilius! Icilius! Come to me!

[Enter a lictor—she shrinks back terrified.

Lictor. Lady, I must exhort thee to be prudent; Such cries will but confine thee e'en more strait Than thou art now confined. Silence is best. So ordered Appius, our gracious lord.  [Exit lictor. Virginia (sobbing softly). I will be still! But I am so afraid, I, innocent, know nothing of the world. Life-bondage? Nay, methinks I am but mad. Severed from him! Ah! lay me in my grave, Rather than have my heart torn from my breast.

[Music is distantly heard.

Oh! If to pass in moonbeams from this life Mid the pure notes of music stealing on Into my brain and sinking in my breast, Enveloping my soul; or to the sound Of rushing wind—that music of the gods Swept by Apollo's hand, or harking to The distant murmur of the restless sea, Striking its pearly harp of mystic sounds, Echoed within the caves where maidens dwell, Nereides and Oceanides, With faces like the sheen of moonbeams, forms[48] Like the white foam their sire, Neptune, makes When angered, with his trident! If to sleep, Sleeping, to dream, and dreaming, live again The years that now lie white upon their bier.

[48]

[The moon vanishes behind a cloud.

Ah, me! I am so utterly alone! The moon hath veiled herself, the silence drear Knocks on my heart, unhidden enters in, Where once love and sweet innocence, in peace Dwelt, all unscarred by a despoiler's hand. It is grown cold! What was that sound I heard? I am so sunk in solitude, so wrapped In vacant space, so chilled, I gasp for breath, Like drowning mariner; but for a hand Warm, 

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