University of Virginia Library

Scene X.

—A Garden.
Artevelde and Adriana.
Artevelde.
I have some little overstayed my time.
First pardon me that trespass.

Adriana.
Yes, indeed;
I said to Clara when the sun went down,
Now if,—though truly 'tis impossible—
He come not ere yon blushing cloud grows gray,
His word itself is but a tinted cloud;
And look how gray it is!

Artevelde.
A hectic change.
The smiling dawn, the laughing blue-eyed day,
The graybeard eve incessantly pass on,
Fast fleeting generations, born of time
And buried in eternity—they pass,
And not a day resigns its little life
And enters into darkness, that can say,
“Lo! I was fair, and such as I have been
My issue shall be; Lo! I cast abroad
Such affluence of glory over earth,
That what had been but goodly to the sight
Was made magnificent, what had been bare
Show'd forth a naked beauty—in all this
Was I thus rich, and that which I possess'd
To-morrow shall inherit.” False as hope!
To-morrow's heritage is cloud and storm.

Adriana.
Oh! what a moody moralist you grow!
Yet in the even-down letter you are right;
For Gerard, who is weather-wise, says true,
That when the sun sets red with the wind south
The morrow shall be stormy. What of that?
Oh! now I know; the fish won't take the bait.
'Tis marvellous the delight you take in fishing!
Were I to hang upon a river's edge
So tediously, angling, angling still,
The fiend that watches our impatient fits
Would sometime tempt me to jump headlong in.
And you—you cannot quit it for a day!
Have I not read your sadness?

Artevelde.
Have you so?
Oh! you are cunning to divine men's thoughts.
But come what may to-morrow, we have now
A tranquil hour, which let us entertain
As though it were the latest of its kind.

Adriana.
Why should we think it so?

Artevelde.
My gentle friend,
I trust that many such may come to you;
But for myself, I feel as if life's stream
Were shooting o'er some verge, to make a short,
An angry and precipitate descent,
Thenceforward much tormented.

Adriana.
Why is this?
What can have fill'd you with such sad surmise?
You were not wont to speak despondently.

Artevelde.
Nor do I now despond. All my life long
I most have prized the man who knew himself,
And knew the ways before him, rough or smooth,
And from amongst them chose, not blindly brave,
But with considerate courage and calm will;
And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind
Pursued his purposes. I train'd myself
To take my place in high or low estate
As one of that scant order of mankind.
Wherefore, though I indulge no more the dream
Of living as I hoped I might have lived,
An inward life of temperate content,
Yet I repine not, and from this time forth
Will cast no look behind.

Adriana.
Oh, Artevelde!
What change has come since morning! Oh! how soon
The words and looks which spoke of joy and peace,
To me at least—how soon are they revoked!
But let them be—it matters not: I, too,
Will cast no look behind—Oh, if I should . . .

Artevelde.
Now see! ere aught is utter'd you run wild
In false conjecture; hear what I would say.
If hitherto we have not said we loved,
Yet hath the heart of each declared its love
By all the tokens wherein love delights.
We heretofore have trusted in each other,
Too wholly have we trusted to have need
Of word or vow or pledge or plighted faith.
Where is it gone, that trust?

Adriana.
I trusted not;
I hoped and feared, doubted and hoped again,
Till this day, when I first breathed freelier,
Daring to trust—and now—O God, my heart!
It was not made to bear this agony—
Tell me you love me or you love me not!

Artevelde.
I love thee, dearest, with as large a love
As e'er was compass'd in the breast of man.
Hide then those tears, beloved, where thou wilt,
And find a resting-place for that so tost
And troubled heart of thine; sustain it here,
And be its flood of passion wept away.

Adriana.
What was it that you said then? If you love,
Why do you terrify me thus?

Artevelde.
Be calm;
And let me warn thee, ere thy choice be fix'd,
What fate thou mayst be wedded to with me.
Thou hast beheld me living heretofore
In staid tranquillity as one retired:
The dweller in the mountains, on whose ear
The accustom'd cataract thunders unobserved,
The seaman who sleeps sound upon the deck
Nor hears the loud lamenting of the blast
Nor heeds the weltering of the restless wave,—
These have not lived more undisturb'd than I:
But build not upon this; the swollen stream
May shake the cottage of the mountaineer
And drive him forth; the seaman roused at length
Leaps from his slumber on the wave-wash'd deck;
And now the time comes fast when here in Ghent
He who would live exempt from injuries
Of armed men, must be himself in arms.
This time is near for all,—nearer for me:
I will not wait upon necessity
And leave myself no choice of vantage ground,
But rather meet the times where best I may
And mould and fashion them as best I can.
Be warned then of the hazard and the cost,
The threatenings of the hour, the frowns of Fate,—
Yes, weigh them well, and in your own free choice
Take or reject me.

Adriana.
Say you my free choice?
Oh, Artevelde! my choice is free no more.
Be mine, all mine, let good or ill betide;
In war or peace, in sickness or in health,
In trouble and in danger and in distress,
Through time and through eternity, I'll love thee:
In youth and age, in life and death, I'll love thee,
Here and hereafter, with all my soul and strength;
So God accept me, as I never cease
From loving and adoring thee next Him;
And oh, may He pardon me if so betray'd
By mortal frailty as to love thee more.

Artevelde.
I fear, my Adriana, 'tis a rash
And passionate resolve that thou hast made:
But how should I admonish thee, myself
So great a winner by thy desperate play.
Heaven is o'er all, and unto Heaven I leave it;
That which has made me weak shall make me strong,
Weak to resist, strong to requite thy love;
And if some tax thou payest for that love,
Thou shalt receive it from Love's exchequer.
Farewell; I'm waited for ere this.

Adriana.
Farewell.
But take my signet-ring and give me thine,
That I may know when I have slept and waked
This was no false enchantment of a dream.

Artevelde.
My signet-ring? I have it not to-day:
But in its stead wear this around thy neck.
And now, my Adriana, my betroth'd,
Give Love a good night's rest within thy heart,
And bid him wake to-morrow calm and strong.