University of Virginia Library

FIFTH SCENE.

Officer.
Thy wife, Count Julian!

Julian.
Speak!

Officer.
Is dead.

Julian.
Adieu
Earth! and the humblest of all earthly hopes,
To hear of comfort, though to find it vain.
Thou murderer of the helpless! shame of man!
Shame of thy own base nature! 'tis an act
He who could perpetrate could not avow,
Stain'd, as he boasts to be, with innocent blood,
Dead to reproach, and blind to retribution.

Officer.
Julian! be just; 'twill make thee less unhappy.
Grief was her end: she held her younger boy
And wept upon his cheek; his naked breast
By recent death now hardening and inert,
Slipt from her knee; again with frantic grasp
She caught it, and it weigh'd her to the ground:
There lay the dead.

Julian.
She?

Officer.
And the youth her son.

Julian.
Receive them to thy peace, eternal God!
O soother of my hours, while I beheld
The light of day, and thine! adieu, adieu!
And, my Covilla! dost thou yet survive?
Yes, my lost child, thou livest yet . . in shame!
O agony, past utterance! past thought!
That throwest death, as some light idle thing,
With all its terrors, into dust and air,
I will endure thee; I, whom heaven ordain'd
Thus to have serv'd beneath my enemies,
Their conqueror, thus to have revisited
My native land with vengeance and with woe.
Henceforward shall she recognise her sons,
Impatient of oppression or disgrace,
And rescue them, or perish; let her hold
This compact, written with her blood and mine.
Now follow me: but tremble: years shall roll
And wars rage on, and Spain at last be free.