University of Virginia Library

DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

Scene: A Garden.
(Enter Isabel.)
Isab.
(alone)
How close the pent, parched air is! and how dull
The face of Heaven that to my lonely Spirit
Lends its sad, leaden hue! Strange stillness broods
Above the swooning Earth: a Solitude
Sits on each living creature, and shuts up
Bird, flower, and leaf within itself to feed
On its lone thoughts, and all fair things appear,
Like Isabel, abandoned. Coy, light leaves,
That now in inarticulate sadness droop,
Wait but the whisper of the wooing wind
To flutter into music; here the lake
Presents its fair face, but no zephyr comes
To kiss it into dimples, and the rose
Sighs out its little scented soul, and lacks
A breeze to drink its fragrance and take off
The liquid sweet that hangs upon its lip:
While I, more sad, more lonely sad than these,
Droop, like a lily overcharged with tears,
And scarcely live till Florian come to bring
Life to my spirit, sunshine to my soul,
Peace to my heart, and joy to everything.
Oh! ye dull Hours,
That fly too fleet for life, the Happy say,
That fly too slow for Sorrow, and forget
To fly when Sorrow sits with eager Love,—
Why bring ye not my Florian to these arms?
Why doth he linger like the laggard Winds
And leave, as they the rose, his Isabel
To waste her soul in unrequited sighs?
Cheat me no longer—

(Voice in the distance.)
Isabel,

Isab.
Hark, hark,
Methought I heard his voice!—still, my fond heart,
It is not he, believe it is not he,
Lest from the summit of expectant Hope
Thou be again dashed down. I will not turn
Lest I should see, and hate, some other man,
And that might be my brother!

(Enter Florian.)
Flor.
Isabel!

Isab.
Dear God! in very truth 'tis he, my Florian!
So, in thy presence all my craven fears,
Disordered, take to flight: come to me, love,
And drive my melancholy after them.

Flor.
Thy melancholy!—where residesit, sweet?
I would it lay upon thy perfect lips
Thence with this chaste kiss to be chased away.

Isab.
I think it dwells indeed upon my lips,
Or in some outward part of me not proof
Against the witchery of thy look and touch,
Since in thy sight it faints, and quite expires
Beneath the pressure of this magic hand.
Come let me lay my head upon thy breast,
And while one ear takes in thy silver speech,
The other, pillowed on thy heart, shall hearken
If it beat still true music. Speak, dear lips,—
What tidings do they bring?

Flor.
Strange tidings, truly,
Which tell how this my heart, sent forth in tune,
Hath uttered barbarous dissonance since the hour
It parted from thee, but that now it beats
Once more a palpitating melody.

Isab.
Well, well, I do believe thee, and my hope
Fathers the fond belief;—but now disclose
The graver tale thou bearest with thee; speak,
State secrets I must learn.

Flor.
Well, thou shalt learn
State secrets, but my heart be still the state;
Light, tremulous creatures plied their fairy skill
Upon it, played with it amorously and strove,
Full many a busy hour and day, to draw
A thrilling tone responsive from its cords
Of manifold vibration—but in vain:
My heart or silence kept or, as I said,
Uttered harsh discord, and it seems that thou,
Cunningest artist of the world, alone
Canst touch it into music!

Isab.
Nay, nay, Florian,
This is ill jesting; sooner might I fear
That Earth should break her orbit and run riot
In Heaven, than fear that thy great, noble spirit
Could lightly wander from the thing it loves;
And this thou knowest—wherefore doth thy tongue
So lightly gambol from a graver theme,
Leaving untold those tidings which concern
Our Country's welfare and, through it, our peace,
As lovers and as loving citizens?
What ails thee, Florian? wherefore dost look down
So gaily on me, and with feverish mirth,
That seemeth scarce akin to happiness,
Smile down my earnest words—is all not well?

Flor.
All's well, my flower!

Isab.
And now I do remember,
Evenwhile, as thou cam'st to me, did I mark
A boisterous and unnatural gaiety,
Which, like a flaunting and false-favoured garment
Not suited to its wearer, ill became thee.
Oh! my fair Florian, prythee look more grave,
Do what thou wilt but smile; I fear thou bearest
Ill tidings that thou seem'st so wanton merry;
Say, is it so?

Flor.
Lynx-eyed! all masks are vain;
Transparent as they are to thy keen vision,
They but befool their wearer; thou hast pierced
My poor disguisement, and thy hawk-like glance
Hath spied the timid thought that in my breast
Nestled and crouched before thee. Wilt thou now,
Self torturer, with bird-like rashness stoop
And pounce upon a secret which may slay thee?

Isab.
Each little moment of thy silence heaps
More weight upon my heart than words can do,
So they but speak of woes to be endured
Through, by thee, with thee, and for thy dear sake.
Fear me not, Florian!

Flor.
From the court I come.
All night the Council of the State hath sat
Weighing the import of that haught reply
Returned by our fierce neighbour, Claudio,
Unto the King's late Embassage;—They find it
Mere froth of words and mouthing insolence
Wherein that stiff-necked Monarch doth abate
Nor jot nor tittle of his gross demands.
Fox-like, in circumambulating speech
Oozing with oily sentiment, he masks
His crafty course, and sidling through a maze
Of witless proverbs, on a sudden comes
Shear to his point—requiring that our King
(Whose office is to serve the State he rules)
Should trample on his country, should crush down
Her energies and sap her very life;
For this, no less, would he achieve if, servile
To the low bidding of this bastard mind,
He stretched a foresworn hand and, taking back
The compact with his people made, should set
A lawless foot upon the neck of slaves;
So, should he strangle his poor State, and prove
A parricidal and a perjured king,
Than whose dark, double crime none smells more rank,
Nor blacker shows before the face of God!
At break of day the Council rose, decreeing
Immediate war—and war hath been declared.

Isab.
War!—oh, ye heavenly powers, let this be all
A mocking dream, and let me wake to Peace,
Peace to my heart, and to the world. Oh! Florian,
Take back that cruel, dark, detested word,
And with it cancel all the hideous thoughts,
That in my mind upon its bloody train
Attendant wait—a legion of red woes!

Flor.
That must I not, whose voice first cried for war
Before the Council, and whose indignation
Burns for the chastisement of that proud knave
Who would drag down to his unworthy level
The King, my father—would reduce our State
To one as frail, decrepit and unhappy
As that which he misrules: How poor and mean
And miserable is that Land, despite
The pomp and pageantry of its vain King,
His teeming wealth, his mercenary hordes,
Bloat masses of corrupted soldiery,
Whereby he reigns, having crushed and trodden out
The spirit of his people. This it is
Which makes his kingdom mean and miserable,
While our's, free, happy, flourishing unchecked
In the pursuit of commerce and the arts,
He hates, and, envious, demands our King
To make it as his own. One rebel joins
With eagerness ten rebels, and ten tyrants
Move heaven and earth,—yea, and the darker Powers,
To gain one to their side; for fellowship
Is sweet in evil: the which knowledge makes
All villains find their comfort in the thought
That Hell is populous. So did I speak
Before the Council, or to this effect,
And then, as now, my voice was raised for War;
Knowing that mighty engine, though it bring
Calamities, disaster, and dismay,
Through seeming evil may attain to good,
Used in a righteous cause.

Isab.
How is't that Man,
Wearing the likeness of his heavenly Maker,
Dowered with the god-like attributes of Sense,
Reason, and Conscience and articulate Speech,—
At the first kindling of an angry thought
Drops his divinity, and likest shows
To fiend or fury in his rabid wrath!
Then blood alone can slake his hellish thirst,
And with his fellow man, unnatural foe,
Crowded in bestial battle, fierce as wolf
Or fiercer tiger in his brutal rage,
He takes his fill of slaughter: then besmeared,
Reeking with Murder, from the bloody kennel
Shameless he stalks before the savage crowd
That shouts him Glory;—and for this, for Glory,
Or, as I think, only from lust of blood,
Man, with the surging passion in him, keeps
Aloof from mother, sister, children, wife,
And slinks away to slaughter; or if these
Bar, with their acclamations and wild tears,
His passage—yea, though wife and children hang
Upon him, and the very babes, that cling
With babbling noise about his knees, impede
His way and bloody purpose—not from them
Shall he learn grace, nor pity from their dumb cries;
But by the thing he loves, if man can love,
By the slight thing he thinks to love he passes,
Harder than the cold steel which doth encase him,
To gory, glorious war. I marvel, Florian,
To see you here; wherefore, when your ears ring
With shouts of beauteous battle, and your nostrils
Sniff the rich pastime, wherefore are you come
To be importuned with a woman's tears?
Now go, go, chivalrous man, or while you dally
Perchance the merry clarion blows, and Murder
Shall miss you in her ranks, and you shall miss
Glory, more dear than any love of woman.
I will not bid thee stay: I will not tell thee
Of those high souls and true who have despised
The rabble's scorn, and, singular in virtue,
Unto the seraph Peace have clung, have served her,
Preached and proclaimed her blessed truths unmoved
By roar of human blood-hounds howling war—
I will not speak to thee of these, nor bid thee,
If popular scorn so scare thy soul, take flight
Unto some farthest end of the fair Earth,
And there, with some one whom thou lov'st, create
Perpetual summer of two happy lives
By Love's sweet offices—pardon me, I am
A fond and foolish woman who loves Peace,
Virtue and every gentle thing, and once
I thought mankind had hearts.

Flor.
Oh! yet believe it:
If in the secret chambers of his breast
To hold one woman-thought which, like a sun,
Diffuses life, light, warmth through all his Being,
The central glory in him, around which
Circle the constellations of his thoughts,
And all his lighter fancies and fond dreams
Cluster and round about it swarm, as bees
About a flower—Oh! if to fold within him
Such thought which is itself his very soul;
If this be love—then man can love, believe it,
And Florian is not heartless. Isabel!
Thou know'st I love thee; hope not, never think
That I would soil that love, which is my life,
By an unworthy act. What lot were mine,
What deep damnation of eternal shame,
If, while my King, my father, and my country,
Kinsmen and friends and all the great of soul
Fight, and in bloody battle die, for Right,
For Liberty, and in Truth's high cause—I,
A recreant villain and a craven slave,
A coward and a fugitive, accursed
Of God, despised of man, self-scorned, and scouted
By every noble woman, should live soft,
Sipping the honied breath of amorous sighs,
And take my pastime in the fields of Love!
Say, would'st thou see me thus?

Isab.
Heaven's light'ning scathe
These eyes, ere I behold it!

Flor.
Ay! and perchance
Defeat awaits my father and the cause
Wherein he fights, and oh! what life were mine
Should I behold my country vanquished, crushed
Beneath the Oppressor, spiritless and dead,
And the veiled form of Her who cannot die,
Immortal Liberty, pass from our shore,
Dishonoured and deserted, weeping tears
Of blood upon the ruins of her shrine—
Might I see this, and see myself alive
Longer than it takes time to sheathe a dagger
In a slave's sickly heart?

Isab.
Oh! pardon me,
Pardon my foolish words, pardon the weakness
Of a fond girl who uttered them in love,
And recked not what she spoke.

Flor.
Fairest! I knew
Thy noble nature never could rebel
'Gainst Truth and Duty's dictates; and for Peace,
Be still her friend as I her champion am;
There let her reign wherever reasoning man,
By use of God-like instincts, can rebuke
Injustice, rapine, wrong, and heal the breach
Of wounded Honour, levying war alone
Against the wolf and tiger; but there be
Tigers and wolves that do infest this earth,
Savagest natures, human in their form
Of intellect though bestial; when these rage,
To brute sense, wherewith Reason cannot cope,
Brute force must be opposed in Truth's high cause.
But see where issuing through his western gate
The Sun departs—slowly, as one who loathes
To leave the thing he loves. Oh! my sweet Saint,
Gentle dispenser of my every good,
Crown of my manhood, my sole Isabel,
Loved more than life and only worshipped less
Than Truth and Duty, fare thee, sweetest, well!
The troops march on the border, in his camp
My father doth await me, and I go.
So let me kiss thee, sweet, and from the kindness
Of thy pure, blushing, odorous lips receive
My dearest blessing!

Isab.
Take it and breathe down
Upon me from the great deeps of thy soul
That love whereon I live; and now delay not,
Go, and believe that Isabel's strong prayer
Shall win from infinite God the crowned success
Of thee and of thy cause; and thou shalt come
Ere long a Victor to these eager arms
Which shall encircle, fetter, and enthral thee
Never to loose thee more!

Flor.
That thought shall lend
Fresh courage to my soul, and shall invest
With superhuman strength the arm I raise
For thee and with thy prayer. Farewell, farewell!

[Exit.
Isab.
(alone)
Go Florian, and go Isabel!—for here,
To die ten thousand paltry deaths a day,
Ten thousand deaths of anguish and of fear,
Despair, suspense and doubt—shall I remain?
Forfend it, oh, my soul!—and be ye keen,
My woman-wits, about me: in an hour
Unsex me, and to every human eye
Convert me straight into a gallant page;
His high-souled purpose leads him to the wars,
And in the train of Florian shall he go!

[Exit.