Scene-10 A Wooded Rising Ground Near the Rhine.
Hugo and Agatha resting under the trees.
Thurston, Eustace, and followers a little apart.Orion. (Noon-day.) 
The Towers of the Convent in the distance. 
Agatha is frightened to go inside the Convent. 
Hugo is beginning to realise that he is in love 
again with Agatha. Orion, in an aside, expresses his thoughts.



AGATHA

I sit on the greensward, and hear the bird sing,
‘Mid the thickets where scarlet and  white blossoms cling;
And beyond the sweet uplands all golden with flower,
It looms in the distance, the grey convent tower.

And the emerald earth and the sapphire-hued sky
Keep telling me ever my spring has gone by;
Ah! spring premature, they are tolling thy knell,
In the wind’s soft adieu, in the bird’s sweet farewell.

Oh! why is the greensward with garlands so gay,
That I quail at the sight of my prison-house grey?
Oh! why is the bird’s note so joyous and clear?
The caged bird must pine in a cage doubly drear.



HUGO

May the lances of Dagobert harry their house,
If they coax or intimidate thee to take vows;
May the freebooters pillage their shrines, should they dare
Touch with their scissors thy glittering hair.

Our short and sweet journey now draws to an end,
And homeward my sorrowful way I must wend;
Oh, fair one! oh, loved one! I would I were free,
To squander my life in the greenwood with thee.



ORION (aside)

Ho! seeker of knowledge, so grave and so wise,
Touch her soft curl again—look again in her eyes;
Forget for the nonce musty parchments, and learn
How the slow pulse may quicken—the cold blood may burn.

Ho! fair, fickle maiden, so blooming and shy!
The old love is dead, let the old promise die!
Thou dost well, thou dost wise, take the word of Orion,
‘A living dog always before a dead lion!
                     Adam Lindsay Gordon