"'If the brute-creatures, which from natal day on cruel ways by Nature's will were bent; or feral birds whose only thought is prey, upon aërial rapine all intent; if men such salvage be'ings have seen display to little children loving sentiment, e'en as to Ninus' mother did befall, and to the twain who rear'd the Roman wall: "'O thou, who bear'st of man the gest and breast, (an it be manlike thus to draw the sword on a weak girl because her love imprest his heart, who took her heart and love in ward); respect for these her babes preserve, at least! since it may not her òbscure death retard: Moved be thy pitying soul for them and me, although my faultless fault unmoved thou see! "'And if thou know'est to deal in direful fight the doom of brand and blade to Moorish host, Know also thou to deal of life the light to one who ne'er deserved her life be lost; But an thou wouldst mine inno'cence thus requite, place me for aye on sad exilèd coast, in Scythian sleet, on seething Libyan shore, with life-long tears to linger evermore. "'Place me where beasts with fiercest rage abound,-- Lyons and Tygers,--there, ah! let me find if in their hearts of flint be pity found, denied to me by heart of humankind. There with intrinsic love and will so fond for him whose love is death, there will I tend these tender pledges whom thou see'st; and so shall the sad mother cool her burning woe.' "Inclin'ed to pardon her the King benign, moved by this sad lament to melting mood; but the rude People and Fate's dure design (that willed it thus) refused the pardon sued: They draw their swords of steely temper fine, They who proclaim as just such deed of blood: Against a ladye, caitiff, felon wights! how showed ye here, brute beasts or noble Knights? "Thus on Polyxena, that beauteous maid, last solace of her mother's age and care, when doom'd to die by fierce Achilles' shade, the cruel Pyrrhus hasted brand to bare: But she (a patient lamb by death waylaid) with the calm glances which serene the air, casts on her mother, mad with grief, her eyes and silent waits that awesome sacrifice. "Thus dealt with fair Ignèz the murth'erous crew, in th' alabastrine neck that did sustain the charms whereby could Love the love subdue of him, who crown'd her after death his Queen; bathing their blades; the flow'ers of snowy hue, which often water'ed by her eyne had been, are blood-dyed; and they burn with blinding hate, reckless of tortures stor'd for them by Fate.