University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A Street open to the sea, the rock seen.
Antonio.
Shall I thus solitary ever live,
And in these haunts, scenes of my pride and triumph,
Alone like one of those dejected ghosts,
Whom poets in their mournful frenzies deem
The hov'ring witnesses of joyous rites,
Held by the friends they thought would weep their death,
Move unregarded, or be seen with fear?—
It were a state less hideous to be doom'd
To constant penance in some dread cadav'ry,
Where the dim death-light shows the mould'ring dead,
Grinning as 'twere in horrible derision,
As the contemptuous spirit of decay
Throws from its scite the long unfasten'd scull.—
To sit alone in some forgotten ruin,
Far in some distant long untravell'd waste,
Where, save the thirsty serpent's ceaseless hiss,
No sound is ever heard:—To see from thence
The red and arid sun's unvaried orb,
Roll o'er the brazen skies and sink to night,
Day after day, in dull monotony,
And all the story of remembrance lost,
But one black thought, the memory of my crime,
Would not, methinks, be such a solitude,
As that which now environs me around,
In the denying looks of former friends.—
Here comes my enemy—O thought unjust;
He was no foe, had I myself been true.

[Enter Orooko.]
Orooko.
There stands the wretch so woeful and forlorn,
That my relenting nature melts to see him.

Antonio.
I would speak to him, and enquire the doom
Pronounced upon the queen. He will not answer,
And yet there's more compassion in his eyes
Than e'er I witness'd, more than they express'd
When hapless Yamos sav'd me from the sea.

[The sound of a shell or horn is heard.]
Orooko.
Hark! the sad sounding of the funeral shell,
Gives dismal warning that the hour approaches.

Antonio.
Tell me, Orooko, what these sounds denote?

Orooko.
The prelude of a solemn sacrifice.—
Thou start'st!—

Antonio.
A sacrifice!

Orooko.
Yes, to our Gods!
The Gods of nature and of innocence!

Antonio.
Ah, stern old man, dost thou impute to mine,
The instigations that have made me guilty;
Or think'st thou that my better part denies
The justice of the punishment I suffer.—
Now, that no more my faith may taint thy tribes,
Nor thin the worshippers around thy altars,
Wilt thou, for once, allow me to repeat
The grounds of my religion.

Orooko.
Fatal man!
Dost thou presume with me to try thine arts?—
Spirit of everlasting life and light,
Avert their influence, and keep me firm,
Against this new contrition that begins
To mine into my heart! (to Antonio)
What would'st thou say,
Would'st thou rehearse to me that tale of fancy,
Which thou hast told of worlds beyond the stars,
Where vital brightness in the beams of wisdom,
Still kindles with intelligence eterne;
And bid me break the bread and drink the wine,
As my acceptance of admission there?
Or would'st thou frighten me, if I refuse,
By the grim terrors of that other region,
That dread abyss beneath the midway ocean,—
Beneath the deep foundations of the isles,—
That hollow vast of everlasting fires—
Sapping the arch on which great Nature stands,
Predoom'd to fall with hideous crash, and hurl
Into the billowy and exasperate flames,
There sink for ever and for ever down,—
Would'st thou tell this, and ask me to believe?

Ant.
No, Sir, and yet by your impassion'd voice,
You seem to tremble, lest it may be true.—
But I would tell you how th'eternal mind
Abhors the guilt of its corporeal agent,
And ask you whence such strange division springs,
If that which thinks, and that which acts in man,
May not exist apart?

Orooko.
And if they may?

Ant.
Shall then the thoughtful element be left
In unappropriated listlessness,
When into dust its mortal dwelling falls?
Or should we deem all the recoil of action
Fix'd to the limit of our biding here;
And lift the aims of human thought no higher
Than the mean instincts of our sensual wishes?—
If man be as you say but animal,
Why am I punish'd, where was Idda's crime?
[Sounds of the shell.
These dismal sounds of sacrifice again!
And this way rolls the throng!

Orooko.
O stay not here,
Stay not to witness what must here be done.
Alas, Antonio, thy mysterious thoughts
Perplex my spirit in an awful hour.

[Exeunt.
[Enter Sebi and Mora.]
Mora.
Where shall I fly that I may but forget
The hideous look of horror and despair,
With which she glared on me her last farewell.
O father, father, hold my bursting head,
Her glance was lightning, and has fired my brain.

Sebi.
Unhappy child!

Mora.
Do you not hear her cries?
Hark!

Sebi.
All is silent.

[the shells sound.
Mora.
Ha! the shells again,
She struggles still, they drag her to the shore.
O bear me hence, support me, father, hence—
I dare not that way look, and yet my eyes,
Charm'd by her horror, will not be withdrawn.

Sebi.
Why will you linger, asking still to fly,
Come, dearest Mora, come?

Mora.
They hold her fast,
The dumb torchbearer steps into the boat;
They bind the victim—wretches, hold! hold! hold!

[Exeunt towards the side by which they entered.