Canto III: Canto III XVII

These greetings o'er, the feelings that o'erflow,Yet grieve to win him back without a blow;They sailed prepared for vengeance--had they knownA woman's hand secured that deed her own,She were their Queen--less scrupulous are theyThan haughty Conrad how they win their way.With many an asking smile, and wondering stare,They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare;And her, at once above--beneath her sex,Whom blood appalled not, their regards perplex.ihTo Conrad turns her faint imploring eye,She drops her veil, and stands in silence by;Her arms are meekly folded on that breast,Which--Conrad safe--to Fate resigned the rest.Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill,Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,The worst of crimes had left her Woman still!

This Conrad marked, and felt--ah! could he less?--Hate of that deed--but grief for her distress;What she has done no tears can wash away,And Heaven must punish on its angry day:But--it was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt,For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;And he was free!--and she for him had givenHer all on earth, and more than all in heaven!And now he turned him to that dark-eyed slaveWhose brow was bowed beneath the glance he gave,Who now seemed changed and humbled, faint and meek,But varying oft the colour of her cheekTo deeper shades of paleness--all its redThat fearful spot which stained it from the dead!He took that hand--it trembled--now too late--So soft in love--so wildly nerved in hate;He clasped that hand--it trembled--and his ownHad lost its firmness, and his voice its tone."Gulnare!"--but she replied not--"dear Gulnare!"iiShe raised her eye--her only answer there--At once she sought and sunk in his embrace:If he had driven her from that resting-place,His had been more or less than mortal heart,But--good or ill--it bade her not depart.Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,His latest virtue then had joined the rest.Yet even Medora might forgive the kissijThat asked from form so fair no more than this,The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith--To lips where Love had lavished all his breath,To lips--whose broken sighs such fragrance fling,As he had fanned them freshly with his wing!ik