From weeping should refrain since love so great Beats in your heart for such a priceless loss. Lady M. The war of hope and fear made desolate The wine-press of our tears immediately; And since the imminence of our great loss, Our constant, wearisome world-wandering Has all unqualified our eyes for tears: I tell you we have gone through all the world. First every city, town, Italian croft, All hermitages, and all robbers' dens, From wintry Blanc to fiery Aetna's base, We searched, or sharpened others' eyes with gold To ransack for our treasure: if two beings, Having between them for their inspiration One soul alone, might lose it, and yet move To seek their riven life, with wanner looks, With ghostlier, more eagle-sighted eyes, Than those with which we glanced through Italy, They could not pierce the region that they haunt: Obscurity was all revealed to us. Thereafter every morn a measured space Of weary world our gaunt eyes oversee: Round with the day from east to west we go. Twelve years, now past, from Rome we westward hied; And here, grown old, foot-sore, heart-sore, and poor In earthly gold, but rich in hope's bright coin We wander west again. Mercer. Most noble souls! You shall not lack for gold while I have wealth. O, you administer a chastisement To my unwinged proceedings in my search For wife and child, which should have distanced yours Who travel only for a daughter. Lady M. No; She is our niece, but loved more than a daughter. Mercer. I never heard, nor read, of such a love. Lady M. O, but you never saw, nor shall behold, So lovable a creature! I would more Lose her and pine for her than be the dame, The happy dame, of seven lusty boys Like any I have seen--the loveliest. Mercer. What kin is she?--your husband's or your own? Lady M. Her father was my husband's elder brother; His wife died when our little one was born. I reared her, loved her, and her infancy Laid hold upon my husband. Six years passed; And then her father wished her back again. Upon that news a sickness of my husband's Became a malady that claimed my care, Dividing so my grief. A worthy priest, Once chaplain to her father, leaving us-- We spent the summer in the Apennines-- We trusted our one jewel to his care. But on the way a brigand regiment Killed him and others who would not submit. The captives being ransomed, she was missed, She and her nurse; and fourteen years reveal But little further light. Her father's dead; She is our ward; and we, her only friends. Mercer. What news is this! A woman and a child In both our stories unaccounted for! You spoke of further light. Lady M. Hope not too much. We met one, Julio, twice among the hills, Where he confessed he led the robber-band That wrought our woe; but of the nurse and child Professed whole innocence and ignorance. When he was captured and condemned to die He asked to see my husband. Penitent,