University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.—Vast subterranean dungeons hewn in the rock, and strewn with rusty chains, bones, and old instruments of torture. Cells in various directions barred with iron gratings. The obscurity is feebly lighted by the lamp which Orval holds at the foot of a huge rocky stone; on the top of which Muriel is standing, in a listening attitude.
Orval.
Son! son!

Muriel.
Hush, Father! hush!

Orval.
Come back! come back!

Muriel.
Dost thou not hear their voices?

Orval.
Nothing, boy,
But the eternal silence of the tomb.

Muriel.
Dost thou not see their forms?

Orval.
I can perceive
Only the giant shadows to whose shapes
This wavering flame uncertain motion lends.

Muriel.
I see them. They approach. One after one
Forth troop they from their gloomy dens, and sit
In dismal synod yonder.

Orval.
Wretched boy,
The night-damp's giddy cold doth fever thee!
Boy, wilt thou rob me of the little strength
That's left me, who now need so much? so much!

Muriel.
I see them, Father . . . pale and fearful forms
Dim-garmented, with solemn faces stern,
Assembling to the dreadful Judgment Seat;
Whereto they summon . . . ah, he comes, The Accused!

Orval.
Muriel!

Muriel.
Dost thou hear them?

Orval.
Muriel!

Voices
(faintly, out of the far darkness).
By the rights that from wrongs we have wrung,
By the power that on pain hath been nurtured,
We,—who were strangled and hung,
We,—who were fetter'd and tortured,
Limbs that were gall'd by the gyve,
Flesh that was burn'd in the fire,
Bodies once buried alive
In the midnight and mire,
We arise in the fulness of time:
And, for robes, in our wrongs we array us,
Who are judges at last of the crime
Which the sons for the fathers must pay us.
For the guilty too late is repentance
Now that we, who were victims, are fates:
And Satan our terrible sentence
To execute waits.

Orval.
What seest thou, Muriel?

Muriel.
The Accused! the Accused!

Orval.
Who is he?

Muriel.
Father! Father, 'tis thyself!

Orval.
O boy! O son! Must thou my doomsman be?

The Voices
(growing louder).
Son of a race accurst, in thee
All its crimes completed be:
All its powers united, all
Its grandeurs, grandest in thy fall:
All the passions, all the pride
Which the dead Past deified!
Of thy race the last, yet first,
Thou the greatest, thou the worst,
Highest crown'd, and deepest curst!
Fated son of fatal sires,
In whose glory flash their fires
Brightest as the flame expires!

Orval.
What hearest thou? what art thou gazing at?
Muriel, I charge thee, come! Unman me not.

A Voice in the darkness.
Because thou never hast loved aught, nor ever
Hast aught adored save thine own self, O soul,
Therefore the face of God shalt thou see never.
Evil thy course, Damnation be thy goal!

Orval.
Son, I see nothing. But methinks I hear
From underground, and in the gloomy air
Above me, mutterings, menaces, and moans.

Muriel.
But He now lifts his head, haughty as thine
When thou art anger'd, Father, and responds
To the dread shadows that do challenge him,
With resolute defiance, even as thou
When those whom thou despisest are not weak.

The Voices.
As we, in our wretchedness, wretchedly thou
Shalt perish unburied, unblest, unknown,
And never a tomb upon earth shall show
If the dust beneath it were once thine own.
None shall weep for thee: none shall pray for thee:
Never a parting psalm be sung,
Never a priest shall point death's way for thee,
Never a passing bell be rung.
Swift and sudden thine end shall be,
And bloody and bitter as ours hath been.
With the selfsame chain
To this rock of pain,
Yet black with the blood we have bled in vain,
As thy fathers bound us, do we bind thee,
To bleed unpitied and die unseen!

Orval.
At last I see, and know, ye, Spirits damn'd!

Muriel.
Father, advance not! In the name of Christ
I do beseech thee, Father!

Orval.
Muriel,
What seest thou yet?

Muriel.
A form.

Orval.
Whose form?

Muriel.
Thine own.
Thy second self—thine image—ghastly pale—
Chain'd—and they torture it. I hear it groan.
Forgive me, Father, but . . .

Orval.
My son!

Muriel.
This night
My Mother came, and charged me . . .

(He swoons, and falls.)
Orval.
Nothing else
Was wanting. To the threshold of Hell's Hall
Mine own son drags me. O Veronica,
Implacable Spirit! and Thou, God, to Whom
I have so oft, and so intensely, pray'd,
Is all in vain? Away! down here i' the dark
The shadows overcome me. Up! away!
Back to the light! Where I have yet to combat
With living men. When I have lost or won
That combat, let what else remains begin:
Eternal memory, and eternal pain!

(Exit, bearing Muriel in his arms.)
The Voices (fainting away.)
Because thou never hast loved aught, nor ever
Hast aught adored, but thine own self, O soul,
Therefore shalt thou the face of God see never.
Evil thy course, Damnation be thy goal!