How then, Alphonso, did thy eager soul Chide the slow hours and painful way, which seem’d Lengthening to grow before their lagging pace! Youth of heroic thought and high desire, ’Tis not the spur of lofty enterprize That with unequal throbbing hurries now The unquiet heart, now makes it sink dismay’d; ’Tis not impatient joy which thus disturbs In that young breast the healthful spring of life; Joy and ambition have forsaken him, His soul is sick with hope. So near his home, So near his mother’s arms; ... alas! perchance The long’d-for meeting may be yet far off As earth from heaven. Sorrow in these long months Of separation may have laid her low; Or what if at his flight the bloody Moor Hath sent his ministers of slaughter forth, And he himself should thus have brought the sword Upon his father’s head?... Sure Hoya too The same dark presage feels, the fearful boy Said in himself; or wherefore is his brow Thus overcast with heaviness, and why Looks he thus anxiously in silence round? Just then that faithful servant raised his hand, And turning to Alphonso with a smile, He pointed where Count Pedro’s towers far off Peer’d in the dell below; faint was the smile, And while it sate upon his lips, his eye Retain’d its troubled speculation still. For long had he look’d wistfully in vain, Seeking where far or near he might espy From whom to learn if time or chance had wrought Change in his master’s house: but on the hills Nor goat-herd could he see, nor traveller, Nor huntsman early at his sports afield, Nor angler following up the mountain glen His lonely pastime; neither could he hear Carol, or pipe, or shout of shepherd’s boy, Nor woodman’s axe, for not a human sound Disturb’d the silence of the solitude.