Act V

The Sisters' Tragedy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

[Midnight.]

First, two white arms that held him very close,
And ever
closer as he drew him back
Reluctantly, the loose gold-colored
hair
A thousand delicate fibres reaching out
Still to detain
him; then some twenty steps
Of iron staircase winding round and
down,
And ending in a narrow gallery hung
With Gobelin
tapestries--Andromeda
Rescued by Perseus, and the sleek Diana

With her nymphs bathing; at the farther end
A door that gave upon
a starlit grove
Of citron and clipt palm-trees; then a path

As bleached as moonlight, with the shadow of leaves
Stamped black
upon it; next a vine-clad length
Of solid masonry; and last of
all
A Gothic archway packed with night, and then--
A sudden
gleaming dagger through his heart.