"_Leonora._--The jest is pleasant--touches, but not near. I honour each man's merit; and to Tasso Am barely just. His eye, that covets nothing, Light ranges over all; his ear is fill'd With the rich harmony great nature makes; What ancient records, what the living scene, Disclose, his open bosom takes it all; What beams of truth stray scattered o'er this world, His mind collects, converges. How his heart Has animated the inanimate! How oft ennobled what we little prize, And shown how poor the treasures of the great! In this enchanted circle of his own Proceeds the wondrous man; and us he draws Within, to follow and participate. He seems to near us, yet he stays remote-- Seems to regard us, and regards instead Some spirit that assumes our place the while. "_Princess._--Finely and delicately hast thou limn'd The poet, moving in his world of thought. And yet, methinks, some fair reality Has wrought upon him here. Those charming verses Found hanging here and there upon our trees, Like golden fruit, that to the finer sense Breathes of a new Hesperides: think you These are not tokens of a genuine love? * * * * * And when he gives a name to the fair object Of all this praise, he calls it Leonora! "_Leonora._--Thy name, as well as mine. I, for my part, Should take it ill were he to choose another. Here is no question of a narrow love, That would engross its solitary prize, And guards it jealously from every eye That also would admire. When contemplation Is deeply busy with thy graver worth, My lighter being haply flits across, And adds its pleasure to the pensive mood. It is not us--forgive me if I say it-- Not us he loves; but down from all the spheres He draws the matter of his strong affection, And gives it to the name we bear. And we-- We seem to love the man, yet love in him That only which we highest know to love. "_Princess._--You have become an adept in this science, And put forth, Leonora, such profundities As something more than penetrate the ear, yet hardly touch the thought. "_Leonora._ --Thou, Plato's scholar! Not apprehend what I, a neophyte, Venture to prattle of"-- Alphonso enters, and enquires after Tasso. Leonora answers, that she had seen him at a distance, with his book and tablets, writing and walking, and adds that, from some hint he had let fall, she gathered that his great work was near its completion; and, in fact, the princess soon after descries him coming towards them:-- "Slowly he comes, Stands still awhile as unresolved, then hastes, With quicken'd step, towards us; then again Slackens his pace, and pauses."