... I cannot hear them
Without a trembling wish that in my heart
Wakens a memory that becomes remorse....
Ah, Reason, soon thou languishest in us,
Accustomed to such outrage all our lives.
Thou know'st the cloister; thou a youth didst enter
That sepulcher of the living where is war,--
Remember it and shudder! The damp wind
Stirs this gray hair. I'm near the sea.
Thy silence is no more; sweet on the ear
Cometh the far-off murmur of the floods
In the vast desert; now no more the darkness
Imprisons wholly; now less gloomily
Lowers the sky that lately threatened storm.
Less thick the air is, and the trembling light
O' the stars among the breaking clouds appears.
Praise to the Lord! The eternal harmony
Of all his work I feel. Though these vague beams
Reveal to me here only fens and tombs,
My soul is not so heavily weighed down
By burdens that oppressed it....
I rise to grander purposes: man's tents
Are here below, his city is in heaven.
I doubt no more; the terror of the cloister
No longer assails me.
Presently Giordano comes to join Arnaldo in this desolate place, and,
in the sad colloquy which follows, tells him of the events of Rome,
and the hopelessness of their cause, unless they have the aid and
countenance of the Emperor.
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