University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—A street. Second and Third Citizens meeting.
Sec. Cit.
Whither haste you with a foot so gloomy,
Swift and silent?

Third Cit.
There's but one place—the Square.

Sec. Cit.
But one. I too am thither bent. Know you
Of any news that bears on Calmstorm?

Third Cit.
More than I would, and more than you would hear.
A man who dwells next-neighboring him, reports
That all last night, most at the dead of night,
And at the hour when slumber turns upon
The ridgy dark to catch a glimpse of day
As it comes on toward the dreaming lid,
One walked in Calmstorm's chamber up and down,
Who seemed—for so a rushing sound, and then
A silence, would make known—to struggle
With th' invisible air, and groanings from him came
That shook the house: 'Twas a dark, dreary night,
And the black Heavens (he said) pressed sullen and close,
Against his dwelling windows.

Sec. Cit.
The day,
I fear, will, brief or long, outlive the man:
I saw afar how this dark hand would at the end
Grasp up the heaven. 'Tis feared his mind is touched.

Third Cit.
Could pity now begin, and weep forever
From this hour till time is fallen to ashes
And a cinder's gloom, her tears would be
A second's dew to what this sadness asks,
Of fountains, rivers, seas, not all insensible.

Sec. Cit.
I dread to go.

Third Cit.
And I, yet more, to stay:
And yet the wheel must roll through all its round
Until the Great Disposer stop it. Let's hasten.

[Exeunt.