University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Osric enters.
Row.
What would'st thou, stranger?

Osric.
O, all-beauteous saint!
Time cuts each lingering preface from my tongue—
Ruin has spread her baleful wings around,
And I from far have hasten'd to preserve thee.

Row.
Do I not hear a voice, that used to make
The widow's music—tuneful as the fall
Of waters on a burnt and thirsty land?
If thou art Osric, say—at once inform me;
Or if his angel, I will kneel to thee.

Osric.
Hold thee, Rowena!—Yes, I am that Osric,
Nor yet immortal.

Row.
Wherefore, then, these weeds,
Thrown o'er thy virtues, like a miser's chest
Rusting on treasure? Some mishap has found thee;
Why else an absence of twelve tedious years?
Where hast thou been, what distance has withheld thee?
And why now here, why thus, and at this hour,
When Apprehension, fearful centinel,
Stands all alarm'd upon the gloom of night,
And startles at events?

Osric.
The tale is long—time serves not now for utterance—
Even, while we speak, destruction rushes onward!
Danes, Dacians, Goths, collecting all their powers,
From Weser to the cold Septentrion star,
The sons of winter, pour such legions forth,
As, number'd, never yet have met in arms,
To speed perdition! Swift, O haste thee hence!—
Friendship attends to guide thy sacred steps
To some asylum; and, to guard thee forth,
Waits a young champion, valiant as his sire,
And gentle as thy self.

Row.
What champion?—Ah!
I will not hope it—no, I will not, Osric!
Yet thy looks speak—and lives my Edwin, then—
My child?—O, call him, give him to my tears,
To my heart's yearnings!—Yet, do not call him;
No, rather keep him from my arms for ever!
Perhaps he knows, knows all the piteous tale
Of his unhappy parents—how the ravisher,
This king of satyrs, stole upon the hour
Of faith, and holy hospitality—
My husband absent, every power away,
That should have guarded innocence and virtue
From brutal force, from horrid violation—
And stain'd the chastest, whitest page of life,
With foul dishonour!

Osric.
No, he knows it not.

Row.
Why, where has he escaped the shafts of slander?
Is there a tongue that speaks Rowena's name,
But aptly tacks pollution to the sound,
And taints the passing breeze?—Who knows nought else,
Is learn'd in my misfortune; and the shame,
That sits between the low abased brows
Of his sad mother, shall attaint my child,
And blast his filial virtue.

Osric.
Think not so.
For thou art all one excellence, too pure
For grosser imputation!—
These many years, the busy, meddling world,
Has talked itself to silence; and thy son,
Hath ever lived, till this important hour,
A stranger to thy name.—
Soon as thy mighty husband fell in battle,
Upon that bloody day, wherein he made
His last dread effort to revenge thy wrongs,
Driven from my country, from my native honours,
I fled, thy little son within my arms;
And in the court of royal Ethelred,
Till now have sojourn'd—Edwin, gentle youth!
Approach, my Edwin!—draw with reverence here,
And bend thee as to Heaven!