University of Virginia Library

SCENE XIV.

A Garden.—Firmilian. Mariana.
FIRMILIAN.
My Mariana!

MARIANA.
O my beautiful!
My seraph love—my panther of the wild—
My moon-eyed leopard—my voluptuous lord!
O, I am sunk within a sea of bliss,
And find no soundings!

FIRMILIAN.
Shall I answer back?
As the great Earth lies silent all the night,
And looks with hungry longing on the stars,
Whilst its huge heart beats on its granite ribs
With measured pulsings of delirious joy—
So look I, Mariana, on thine eyes!

MARIANA.
Ah, dearest, wherefore are we fashioned thus?
I cannot always hang around thy neck
And plant vermilion kisses on thy brow;
I cannot clasp thee, as yon ivy bush—
Too happy ivy!—holds, from year to year,
The stalwart oak within her firm embrace,
Mixing her tresses fondly up with his,
Like some young Jewish maid with Absalom's.
Nay, hold, Firmilian! do not pluck that rose!

FIRMILIAN.
Why not? it is a fair one.

MARIANA.
Are fair things
Made only to be plucked? O fie on thee!
I did not think my lord a libertine!

FIRMILIAN.
Yet, sweetest, with your leave I'll take the rose,
For there's a moral in it.—Look you here.
'Tis fair, and sweet, and in its clustered leaves
It carries balmy dew: a precious flower,
And vermeil-tinctured, as are Hebe's lips.
Yet say, my Mariana, could you bear
To gaze for ever only upon this,
And fling the rest of Flora's casket by?

MARIANA.
No, truly—I would bind it up with more,
And make a fitting posy for my breast.
If I were stinted in my general choice,
I'd crop the lily, tender, fresh, and white,—
The shrinking pretty lily—and would give
Its modest contrast to the gaudier rose.
What next? some flower that does not love the day—
The dark, full-scented night-stock well might serve
To join the other two.

FIRMILIAN.
A sweet selection!
Think'st thou they'd bloom together on one breast
With a united fragrance?

MARIANA.
Wherefore not?
It is by union that all things are sweet.

FIRMILIAN.
Thou speakest well! I joy, my Mariana,
To find thy spirit overleaps the pale
Of this mean world's injurious narrowness!
Never did Socrates proclaim a truth
More beautiful than welled from out thy lips—
“It is by union that all things are sweet.”
Thou, darling, art my rose—my dewy rose—
The which I'll proudly wear, but not alone.
Dost comprehend me?

MARIANA.
Ha! Firmilian—
How my eyes dazzle!

FIRMILIAN.
Let me show you now
The lily I have ta'en to bind with thee.

[He brings Lilian from the Summer-house.
MARIANA.
Is this a jest, Firmilian?

FIRMILIAN.
Could I jest
With aught so fair and delicate as this?
Nay, come—no coyness! Both of you embrace.
Then to my heart of hearts—

MARIANA.
Soft you a moment!
Methinks the posy is not yet complete.
Say, for the sake of argument, I share
My rights with this pale beauty—(for she's pretty;
Although so fragile and so slight a thing,
That a mere puff of April wind would mar her)—
Where is the night-stock?
Firmilian brings Indiana from the tool-house.
Here!

MARIANA.
A filthy negress!
Abominable!

LILIAN.
Mercy on me! what blubber lips she has!

MARIANA, furiously to FIRMILIAN.
LILIAN.
My uncle is the chief Inquisitor,
And he shall know of this ere curfew tolls!
What! Shall I share a husband with a coal?

MARIANA.
Right, girl! I love thee even for that word—
The Inquisition makes most rapid work,
And, in its books, that caitiff's name is down!

FIRMILIAN.
Listen one moment! When I was a babe,
And in my cradle puling for my nurse,
There fell a gleam of glory on the floor,
And in it, darkly standing, was a form—

MARIANA.
A negress, probably! Farewell awhile—
When next we meet—the faggot and the pile!
Come, Lilian!

[Exeunt.
INDIANA.
I shake from head to foot with sore affright—
What will become of me?

FIRMILIAN.
Who cares? Good night!

[Scene closes.