I trust
I shall forgive him--by-and-by--not now.
O sir, you seem to have a heart; if you
Had seen us that wild morning when we found
Her bed unslept in, storm and shower lashing
Her casement, her poor spaniel wailing for her,
That desolate letter, blotted with her tears,
Which told us we should never see her more--
Our old nurse crying as if for her own child,
My father stricken with his first paralysis,
And then with blindness--had you been one of us
And seen all this, then you would know it is not
So easy to forgive--even the dead.
HAROLD.
But sure am I that of your gentleness
You will forgive him. She, you mourn for, seem'd
A miracle of gentleness--would not blur
A moth's wing by the touching; would not crush
The fly that drew her blood; and, were she living,
Would not--if penitent--have denied him _her_
Forgiveness. And perhaps the man himself,
When hearing of that piteous death, has suffer'd
More than we know. But wherefore waste your heart
In looking on a chill and changeless Past?
Iron will fuse, and marble melt; the Past
Remains the Past. But you are young, and--pardon me--
As lovely as your sister.
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