MELCHTHAL.
Never, never more!

[Presses his hands upon his eyes and is silent for some
moments; then turning from one to the other, speaks in a
subdued tone, broken by sobs.

O the eye's light, of all the gifts of heaven,
The dearest, best! From light all beings live--
Each fair created thing--the very plants
Turn with a joyful transport to the light,
And he--he must drag on through all his days
In endless darkness! Never more for him
The sunny meads shall glow, the flowerets bloom;
Nor shall he more behold the roseate tints
Of the iced mountain top! To die is nothing,
But to have life, and not have sight--oh, that
Is misery indeed! Why do you look
So piteously at me? I have two eyes,
Yet to my poor blind father can give neither!
No, not one gleam of that great sea of light,
That with its dazzling splendor floods my gaze.

STAUFFACHER.
Ah, I must swell the measure of your grief,
Instead of soothing it. The worst, alas!
Remains to tell. They've stripped him of his all;
Naught have they left him, save his staff, on which,
Blind and in rags, he moves from door to door.