University of Virginia Library

SCENE IX.

KING EDWARD, QUEEN, GWENDYLEN.
GWENDYLEN,
(entering, and almost expiring.)
'Tis in vain,
Too lovely consort of a crowned assassin!
In vain thy active tenderness attempts
To cancel his barbarity: My father,
With firm triumphant fortitude, has past
To those blest realms, whence not the voice of Kings,
Nor the more sacred breath of spotless virtue,
Can now recall his earth-contemning spirit.

KING EDWARD.
Unhappy daughter! hast thou seen him perish!
Where then was Clyfford, whose impetuous pity
Flew hence unwarranted to save thy sire.

GWENDYLEN.
Relentless Edward! hear his fate, and feel
How cruelty, in its blind rage, recoils,
And like a madd'ning serpent, stings itself!
That generous youth, whom I shall soon rejoin,
Suffers no longer in a world, which thou,
Inhuman monster! by thy savage sway,
Hast made a residence, unfit for beings,
Who with a heart like his embrace the injured.
Hark! I am called: their free, ascending spirits
Wait yet for me: I come: The generous Clyfford
At my request conducted me to view
The horrid scene, that my prophetic soul
Felt by anticipation a release
From all thy tyranny—yes, I beheld
Thy murderous archers pierce my father's breast—
That shaft to me was like the friendly lightning,
That makes convulsive anguish sink to peace.
Lifeless I fell, and, as I since have learnt,
Kind Clyfford deemed me dead, and nobly flew
To bless my dying father, and to tell him
That death's kind angel had conveyed his daughter
To wait for him in Heaven!

QUEEN.
What fatal chance
Destroyed my Clyfford?

GWENDYLEN.
In a peasant's garb
He rushed upon the weapons of the soldiers
That sought to bar him from my sire's embrace—
They did not know their prince, till his life-blood
Stained their accursed steel—He spurned their aid
Embraced my sire then dying, and retired
To die near her, whom he had left as dead.
His honored voice recalled my parting soul
Only to bless him in his death, and bring
His benediction to his heart's pure queen
His guardian Eleanor—this duty done
To my loved Clyfford, to that glorious youth,
Who gave me proof how pleasing 'tis to die,
Kind nature now is rapidly dissolving
The mortal ties, that yet withhold my spirit
From him, and from my sire: now earth receive
This poor incumbrance, that my willing soul
Exults to quit—

(She falls.)
QUEEN.
O yet abjure not life,
Dear Gwendylen! thou shalt be as my child,
And join with me to grace thy Clyfford's grave.

GWENDYLEN.
No! thou mild angel, wedded to a fiend!
Rather would I, to recompense thy goodness,
Share with thee a blest death, that terminates
Unmerited affliction: but thy doom
Is to live long, and live a wounded witness
Of mad ambition, which thou canst not temper.
My parting soul, rapt in prophetic vision,
Sees all the future reign of thy fierce Edward;
Another realm, like injured Cambria, waits
To crouch beneath his desolating sway,
And curse the proud invader: His stern soul,
Unsoftened by thy tenderness, shall lose thee;
But thou, sweet Eleanor! Thou shalt be mourned,
With honors, such as never Queen before thee
Won from imperial sorrow.

KING EDWARD.
Pray! be silent,
Thou poor distracted girl, and let us try
If salutary care may still—

GWENDYLEN.
Stand off, rash tyrant! yet respect the dying!
And hear thy destiny! Thy joy is conquest,
And conquest shall be thine: iniquity
Draws, as its curse from fortune, all it wishes.
Power shall not sate thee, nor affliction soften:
E'en death itself, whose visible approach
Can bend ambition to new thoughts of peace,
Shall fail from thy infuriate soul to banish
Thy savage thirst of empire and of carnage.
Thy dying voice shall bid thy very bones
Be borne to battle in thy army's front,
Tho' dead still proving the accurst oppressor!
But mark the fruit of all thy victories!
Thy child, so basely made the lord of Cambria,
Shall die the vilest death: hurled from a throne
Stained by thy guilt, and his ignobler vices!
Ages shall rise, when thy enlightened country,
No longer dazzled by thy martial triumph,
Shall see thy crimes, as my just father saw them,
And English bards shall execrate thy name.
I faint: ye friendly spirits hovering round me,
Receive me to your fellowship!—My father!—

(Dies.
KING EDWARD.
O Eleanor! the ravings of this damsel
Have struck an icy tremor thro' my breast,
Ne'er felt before! See thou her corse be honored,
And laid with our lost Clyfford as his bride!
Had I, thou mild remembrancer of mercy!
Had I but listened to the first entreaty,
Of thy benignant heart, we had escaped
This hour of vain regret, and deep remorse.