The Venetian bracelet the lost Pleiad, a history of the lyre, and other poems. By L. E. L. [i.e. Landon] |
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 | The Venetian bracelet |  |
SCENE VI.
—A Hall filled with Guests. The Count, Jaromir, and Bertha.FIRST LADY.
This is delightful. Why the grim old hall
Is fill'd with torches; every shining shield
And gilded helm reflects the light: the crowd
Within their ancient coffers.
SECOND LADY.
Yet methinks
There is a shadow on this gaiety,
Flung from departed years; yon empty helm,
The last memorial of some mighty chief,
Now even as the dust upon his plume;
Those ghastly portraits bringing back the dead.
I cannot bear to look upon a face
Warm with the hues of life, from which long since
All likeness to the human form has pass'd.
FIRST LADY.
This is too fanciful:—come, join the dance.
A gallant cavalier this new-found Count:
He'll wear his honours gaily.
SECOND NOBLEMAN.
Such excess
Of mirth's exuberance visits not for good.
An evil fate is written on his brow;
The dark, the ominous,—his very joy
Is like a desperate man's:—I like it not.
He is not one over whose head the curse
Will pass away that hangs upon his house.
FIRST NOBLEMAN.
Yonder is Bertha; but how very pale!—
More like a nun on whom the moonlight falls
In some lone cell, than a betrothed bride.
For an old friend to-night?
BERTHA.
My very kindest, if you did but know
The happiness of one familiar face.
Let us rest here awhile, the open air
Is so refreshing in its natural sweetness.
My head is dizzy with excess of light;
Let us but join with looks the festival
Awhile from this alcove.
FIRST NOBLEMAN.
How miser-like
The wealth of spring is heap'd! Say, are not these
Among your favourite flowers?
Blue hyacinths!
Oh, do not show them me; they fill my eyes
With tears too soft for such a scene as this.
FIRST NOBLEMAN.
Is happiness so wholly past from thee,
That its remembrance is turn'd into pain?
Or is thy heart, thy woman's heart, so caught
By this gay revel, that a serious thought
Is counted as a pleasure lost?
BERTHA.
But now thy words give utterance to mine,
Which else might seem so grave. I've lived too long
Have dwelt too much in solitude, whose fence
Was broken but by old beloved friends,
To bear this revelry of festival,
And not feel too oppress'd for happiness.
I am spectator, not partaker, here.
To me it seems more like a pageant made
To represent mirth, than the mirth itself.
I have known many that did act a joy
In which they had no part. At first I gazed
In wonder and delight on lips that wore
A smile as if by custom, and on eyes
Which seem'd but made to look bland courtesy.
This did not last. I saw the cheek grow red
With ill-dissembled anger, at some slight;
The eye flash sudden fire, and the harsh lip
Is it not like those lands, where, I have read,
Beneath an outward show of fairest flowers
The soil has veins of subterranean flame,
Whose fiery sparkles start to sudden life
When we least dream of them. I'd rather breathe
One moment's breath of morning on the hills,
Than all the Indian woods that ever burnt
On silver censers; and would rather see
One leaf fall from the bough which misses not
Its loss, than look upon the purple sweep
Of these rich tapestries.
Jaromir
in the distance.
Health and long happiness, my friends!
coming forward.
Who are those strangers? They are arm'd; and see
How rudely do they force their way!
Officers
rush up the room, and surround Jaromir, exclaiming,
Our prisoner!
FIRST OFFICER.
Count Herman, we are sorry thus to break
Upon your gaiety.
COUNT HERMAN.
Off, off! your prisoner is my nearest kin,
The noble heir of these insulted halls.
But not the less the robber Udolph, too.
JAROMIR.
Discover'd, baffled—well, I can but die.
I will not shame a name at which so oft
The brave have trembled. I am Udolph: come,
I do defy you: one and all come on.
Is there no rescue in my father's house?
[Some of the young Cavaliers come forward; they fight; when Bertha flings herself before Jaromir, who is mortally wounded, and receives another blow destined for him.
BERTHA.
My father!—
[Dies.
There, take my sword; I cannot see her face.
Oh, for one hour of life but to revenge!
COUNT HERMAN.
I see her:—'tis the Ancestress!
[The Ancestress glides across the stage, beckoning the Count.
COUNT.
The last and the accursed of my house,
Will no one let me touch his hand?
Enter Servants.
[Servants.]
The castle is on fire!—a lightning flash
Has set the eastern turrets in a blaze.
Fly for your lives!
We must take hence this miserable man.
FIRST NOBLEMAN.
He's dead!
[The flames burst into the room, and they fly.
The Ancestress is seen to kneel by the dead, with her hands raised to heaven, till the falling ruins of the Castle hide the whole.
The hint of “The Ancestress” is taken from a German play by Grillparzer, called “The Ahnfrau.” The following is the account of it, contained in Blackwood's Magazine for September 1825:—“The guilt of the Ahnfrau having introduced a spurious heir into the noble family of Borotin, she cannot rest in her grave until her crime is expiated, and its consequences remedied, by the extinction of the intrusive line. This is finally effected in the play through a series of horrible calamities. The son of the Count having been stolen in his infancy by a robber, is brought up in his supposed father's profession; falls in love, as unwittingly as Œdipus, with his sister; kills his father in a scuffle with the Bow-street officers of Poland; and finally dies in the embrace of his ghostly Ahnfrau, whom he mistakes for Bertha. The old lady, when her penance is completed, by the disasters of her descendants, which, with truly disinterested maternal love, she had vainly endeavoured to prevent, ends the tragedy by going quietly home into her hitherto untenanted monument.”
I have taken very considerable liberties with the original plot; first, in making the guilt of the Ancestress supernatural, as believing such most likely to incur supernatural punishment; secondly, in making Jaromir cousin instead of brother, and thus avoiding the most revolting of crimes; and, thirdly, in awarding something of the character of poetical justice, as it is the Count's own offence which brings down the punishment.
| The Venetian bracelet | |