Britain ... - Blue-Lite

Scene III.] THE VARANGIAN. 353
Sorely am I bereaved.
BEN-ZADOC.
Woe worth this night !
HEREWARD.
Ha ! lurks there still
That devilish avarice in thine iron heart ?
The time is past which would the truth have proved
Of thy repentance.
Thou art powerless now,
And virtueless 'tis feared ; and therefore we,
By right of that time-honoured office which
To us belongs, thus from thy bosom tear
The badge of our bright Order, which so long
Thou hast disgraced, and cast thee out for aye
And ever from our brotherly communion.
Retire for safety to yon inner tents.
[Exeunt Ben-Zadoc and household.
Some would our Order brand, for thy dark deeds,
With infamy : as well might they charge guilt
On a pure river, fringed with groves and flowers,
Wherein some woe-encumbered wretch hath flung
Himself, and madly perished.
Now then, Zalmira, for St. Alban's towers.
Our dangers and our joys have been like shadows
Coursing the sunbeams o'er the mountain's side.
ZALMIRA.
O, let us hence : I long
to end these cares.
Anguish is turned to joy, despair to hope ;
Yet in some darker storm again may fade
Her radiant bow of promise :
So in the deserts of the East, where all
Is desolation, o'er the pilgrim comes
The vision of bright lakes, with sunny isle,
City, and tower, and palm-tree groves, and fields,
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