I know the inconstant people how their mind, With every breath of good or ill report, Fluctuates, like summer corn before the breeze; Quick in their hatred, quicker in their love, Generous and hasty, soon would they redress All wrongs of former obloquy ... I thought Of happiness restored, ... the broken heart Heal’d, ... and Count Julian, for his daughter’s sake, Turning in thy behalf against the Moors His powerful sword: ... all possibilities That could be found or fancied, built a dream Before me; such as easiest might illude A lofty spirit train’d in palaces, And not alone amid the flatteries Of youth with thoughts of high ambition fed When all is sunshine, but through years of woe, When sorrow sanctified their use, upheld By honourable pride and earthly hopes. I thought I yet might nurse upon my knee Some young Theodofred, and see in him Thy Father’s image and thine own renew’d, And love to think the little hand which there Play’d with the bauble, should in after days Wield the transmitted sceptre; ... that through him The ancient seed should be perpetuate, ... That precious seed revered so long, desired So dearly, and so wonderously preserved. Nay, he replied, Heaven hath not with its bolts Scathed the proud summit of the tree, and left The trunk unflaw’d; ne’er shall it clothe its boughs Again, nor push again its scyons forth, Head, root, and branch, all mortified alike!... Long ere these locks were shorn had I cut off The thoughts of royalty! Time might renew Their growth, as for Manoah’s captive son, And I too on the miscreant race, like him, Might prove my strength regenerate; but the hour, When in its second best nativity, My soul was born again through grace, this heart Died to the world. Dreams such as thine pass now Like evening clouds before me; if I think How beautiful they seem, ’tis but to feel How soon they fade, how fast the night shuts in. But in that World to which my hopes look on, Time enters not, nor Mutability; Beauty and goodness are unfading there; Whatever there is given us to enjoy, That we enjoy for ever, still the same.... Much might Count Julian’s sword atchieve for Spain And me, but more will his dear daughter’s soul Effect in Heaven; and soon will she be there An Angel at the throne of Grace, to plead In his behalf and mine. I knew thy heart, She answer’d, and subdued the vain desire. It was the World’s last effort. Thou hast chosen The better part. Yes, Roderick, even on earth There is a praise above the monarch’s fame, A higher, holier, more enduring praise, And this will yet be thine! O tempt me not, Mother! he cried; nor let ambition take That specious form to cheat us! What but this, Fallen as I am, have I to offer Heaven? The ancestral sceptre, public fame, content Of private life, the general good report,