Afflict not thus thyself, my child, the Count Exclaim’d; O dearest, be thou comforted; Set but thy heart at rest, I ask no more! Peace dearest, peace!... and weeping as he spake, He knelt to raise her. Roderick also knelt; Be comforted, he cried, and rest in faith That God will hear thy prayers! they must be heard. He who could doubt the worth of prayers like thine May doubt of all things! Sainted as thou art In sufferings here, this miracle will be Thy work and thy reward! Then raising her, They seated her upon the fountain’s brink, And there beside her sate. The moon had risen, And that fair spring lay blackened half in shade, Half like a burnish’d mirror in her light. By that reflected light Count Julian saw That Roderick’s face was bathed with tears, and pale As monumental marble. Friend, said he, Whether thy faith be fabulous, or sent Indeed from Heaven, its dearest gift to man, Thy heart is true: and had the mitred Priest Of Seville been like thee, or hadst thou held The place he fill’d; ... but this is idle talk, ... Things are as they will be; and we, poor slaves, Fret in the harness as we may, must drag The Car of Destiny where’er she drives, Inexorable and blind! Oh wretched man! Cried Roderick, if thou seekest to assuage Thy wounded spirit with that deadly drug, Hell’s subtlest venom; look to thine own heart, Where thou hast Will and Conscience to belie This juggling sophistry, and lead thee yet Through penitence to Heaven! Whate’er it be That governs us, in mournful tone the Count Replied, Fate, Providence, or Allah’s will, Or reckless Fortune, still the effect the same, A world of evil and of misery! Look where we will we meet it; wheresoe’er We go we bear it with us. Here we sit Upon the margin of this peaceful spring, And oh! what volumes of calamity Would be unfolded here, if either heart Laid open its sad records! Tell me not Of goodness! Either in some freak of power This frame of things was fashion’d, then cast off To take its own wild course, the sport of chance; Or the bad Spirit o’er the Good prevails, And in the eternal conflict hath arisen Lord of the ascendant! Rightly would’st thou say Were there no world but this! the Goth replied. The happiest child of earth that e’er was mark’d To be the minion of prosperity, Richest in corporal gifts and wealth of mind, Honour and fame attending him abroad, Peace and all dear domestic joys at home, And sunshine till the evening of his days Closed in without a cloud, ... even such a man Would from the gloom and horror of his heart Confirm thy fatal thought, were this world all, Oh! who could bear the haunting mystery, If death and retribution did not solve The riddle, and to heavenliest harmony Reduce the seeming chaos!... Here we see