In the first scene of the third act, which is a desolate place in the Campagna, near the sea, Arnaldo appears. He has been expelled from Rome by the people, eager for the opening of their churches, and he soliloquizes upon his fate in language that subtly hints all his passing moods, and paints the struggle of his soul. It appears to me that it is a wise thing to make him almost regret the cloister in the midst of his hatred of it, and then shrink from that regret with horror; and there is also a fine sense of night and loneliness in the scene:
Like this sand Is life itself, and evermore each path Is traced in suffering, and one footprint still Obliterates another; and we are all Vain shadows here that seem a little while, And suffer, and pass. Let me not fight in vain, O Son of God, with thine immortal word, Yon tyrant of eternity and time, Who doth usurp thy place on earth, whose feet Are in the depths, whose head is in the clouds, Who thunders all abroad, _The world is mine!_ Laws, virtues, liberty I have attempted To give thee, Rome. Ah! only where death is Abides thy glory. Here the laurel only Flourishes on the ruins and the tombs. I will repose upon this fallen column My weary limbs. Ah, lower than this ye lie, You Latin souls, and to your ancient height Who shall uplift you? I am all weighed down By the great trouble of the lofty hopes Of Italy still deluded, and I find Within my soul a drearer desert far Than this, where the air already darkens round, And the soft notes of distant convent bells Announce the coming night.... 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.