BEATRICE: Yet both will soon be cold. Oh, trample out that thought! Worse than despair, Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope: It is the only ill which can find place Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour _100 Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost That it should spare the eldest flower of spring: Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free; Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead _105 With famine, or wind-walking Pestilence, Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man! Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words, In deeds a Cain. No, Mother, we must die: Since such is the reward of innocent lives; _110 Such the alleviation of worst wrongs. And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men, Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears To death as to life's sleep; 'twere just the grave Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death, _115 And wind me in thine all-embracing arms! Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom, And rock me to the sleep from which none wake. Live ye, who live, subject to one another As we were once, who now... NOTE: _105 yawn edition 1821; yawns editions 1819, 1839. [BERNARDO RUSHES IN.] BERNARDO: Oh, horrible! _120 That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer, Even till the heart is vacant and despairs, Should all be vain! The ministers of death Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw Blood on the face of one...What if 'twere fancy? _125 Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off As if 'twere only rain. O life! O world! Cover me! let me be no more! To see That perfect mirror of pure innocence _130 Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good, Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice, Who made all lovely thou didst look upon... Thee, light of life ... dead, dark! while I say, sister, To hear I have no sister; and thou, Mother, _135 Whose love was as a bond to all our loves... Dead! The sweet bond broken! [ENTER CAMILLO AND GUARDS.] They come! Let me Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves Are blighted...white...cold. Say farewell, before Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear _140 You speak! NOTE: _136 was as a Rossetti cj.; was a editions 1819, 1821, 1839.