No More Learning

FORESTER.
News from the Prince!

URSULA.
Of death or life?

FORESTER.
You put your questions eagerly!

URSULA.
Answer me, then! How is the Prince?

FORESTER.
I left him only two hours since
Homeward returning down the river,
As strong and well as if God, the Giver,
Had given him back his youth again.

URSULA, despairing.
Then Elsie, my poor child, is dead!

FORESTER.
That, my good woman, I have not said.
Don't cross the bridge till you come to it,
Is a proverb old, and of excellent wit.

URSULA.
Keep me no longer in this pain!

FORESTER.
It is true your daughter is no more;--
That is, the peasant she was before.

URSULA.
Alas! I am simple and lowly bred,
I am poor, distracted, and forlorn.
And it is not well that you of the court
Should mock me thus, and make a sport
Of a joyless mother whose child is dead,
For you, too, were of mother born!

FORESTER.
Your daughter lives, and the Prince is well!
You will learn erelong how it all befell.
Her heart for a moment never failed;
But when they reached Salerno's gate,
The Prince's nobler self prevailed,
And saved her for a noble fate.
And he was healed, in his despair,
By the touch of St. Matthew's sacred bones;
Though I think the long ride in the open air,
That pilgrimage over stocks and stones,
In the miracle must come in for a share.

URSULA.