But as its echoes died away, His spirit trod that golden shore Where hope becomes reality And sorrow is no more. He sought the abbess; on his knees Unfolded, page by page, his grief; While she, albeit cold and stern, Wept, yielding to belief. And Florence came, while Clarence stood In breathless silence far apart, A thousand hopes and joys and fears Conflicting at his heart. Throwing aside his pilgrim cowl Clarence fell trembling at her feet: “Florence,” he murmured, “loved and lost, At last, at last we meet.” She stood in silence, with her eyes Fixed on the youth—a heavenly calm From out whose subsidence of sound Came “Clarence,” like a psalm. And then he knelt and told his tale: How he had loved in other lands, And she he sought had faithlessly Obeyed a sire’s commands, And left him desolate; how, when, After long weeks of aching pain A pale, heartbroken, weary man, With fevered brow and brain, He sought his native land, and stood Again within his castle halls, But found that soothing Peace had flown Forever from its walls; And how, when wandering in the woods, Accusing God of all his wo, Madder with memories of the Past Than any fiend below, She, Florence, like an angel, rose To calm his heart, and dry his tears, And fill his brain with melodies Stolen from statelier spheres. And how he sought to test her love, And feared, recurring to the past, That this, his eidolon of joy, Might prove too bright to last. And so, in humble garb, in state No loftier than the maiden’s own, He sought her love, not for his lands But for himself alone. And how he came and found her gone, And since, month after month, in pain, Had followed her from town to town, With burning heart and brain; And how, when hope was gone, and life Seemed like a land which lay behind— The future like a desolate void— How, when he most repined— When death had been a welcome thing, Her voice, the concord of the spheres, Had called his memory from her tomb On which it lay in tears.