University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

A room in Mordred's cottage.
Enter Lenora supporting Mordred.
Mor.
Here let me rest, in my old oaken chair:
My limbs grow faint, and yet, kind, careful nurse,
Your smiles have chased away my pains.

Len.
Dear husband,
A thousand thanks for those delightful words;
They bid me hope again and warm my heart.

Mor.
It renovates the spirit thus to look,
With the clear eye of health and joyousness,
Upon the green creation. But I miss
A smile of hope, the copy of Lenora's,
That's wont to light my soul with its rich love;
Where is my peach-cheeked girl, my Floribel?

Len.
She will be with us soon; before you woke,
She went to ramble underneath the boughs,
And feed her forest birds; each bower she knows
Of eglantine and hawthorn; now the air
Is calm, she will return.

Mor.
I hope she may;
Yet who could injure such a holy thing?
The frenzied tempest's self, had it a will,
Would leave her path secure. My dear Lenora,
There is one thing I wish to see accomplished
Before I die.

Len.
What is it, love? And yet methinks 'twere fit
For me still to defer its execution,
And cheat you into living to that end.

Mor.
Long have I prayed to see her beauty growing
Under some worthy husband's firm protection.

Len.
What if she be already wedded?

Mor.
No,
That cannot be, she would have told unto me
The first emotions of her infant love;
She never had a thought concealed from me,
Even her slightest. 'Tis impossible;
And yet you look in earnest; speak, and tell me
You only jest.

Len.
I speak indeed the truth;
Perhaps I was imprudent not to tell you,
But you were very ill, and, such the match,
You could not disapprove: Young Hesperus—

Mor.
Lord Ernest's son!

Len.
The same.

Mor.
I'm satisfied,
My wish is all fulfilled. There's not a man
Beneath the sun more noble; but his father
Was wont to be a stern imperious lord,
A scorner of the poor.

Len.
He did not know it.

Mor.
He knew it not! That was a sad omission,
Unworthy of a parent; we might rue it.

Len.
This night our daughter's bridegroom
Comes, as his own to claim her, and, ere this,
Doubtless has told the love-tale to his father.

Mor.
I wish him speedy, he shall find a welcome,
In the poor man's sole wealth, my hearty love.
Hark! There's a step.

Len.
'Tis Hesperus'; I know it.

Enter the Huntsman.
Mor.
Who comes, who is it?

Len.
One, whose visage wears
The darkest sadness; such a man I'd choose
For the mute herald of disaster.

Hunts.
Lady,
Would that my looks could mirror to your soul
The woe, each syllable of which in speaking
Tears through my heart. Alas! your lovely daughter—

Len.
What? Speak I pray thee. Has she met with aught?

Mor.
Bid me die, or my fears.

Enter Hubert with the body of Floribel.
Hunts.
Here's all that's left
Of nature's rarest work: this lifeless all.
Oh! fall some strange, unheard-of punishment
On Hesperus' head.

Mor.
Hesperus, Hesperus; oh!

[Falls back in his chair.
Hub.
Aye, 'twas his hand that wrought its passage here,
And murdered love in its most sacred temple.

[Lenora takes the body into her lap and sits nursing it.
Hunts.
Alas! he heeds not; he is with his daughter.
Look at this other.

Hub.
Oh! I cannot bear it;
Leave her, a mother's agony is holy
As nature's mysteries.

Hunts.
We'll to the Duke,
And crush the viper in his nest, before
Report alarm him. Gently, gently tread
And wake not echo in this home of woe.

[Exeunt Hubert and the Huntsman.
Len.
[Sings in a distracted manner.

[Exit.