University of Virginia Library

V. Vol. V.

SARDANAPALUS:

A TRAGEDY.

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS, WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY, AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE. THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM IS ENTITLED SARDANAPALUS.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

• Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh and Assyria, etc.
• Arbaces, the Mede who aspired to the Throne.
• Beleses, a Chaldean and Soothsayer.
• Salemenes, the King's Brother-in-Law.
• Altada, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace.
• Pania.
• Zames.
• Sfero.
• Balea.

WOMEN.

• Zarina, the Queen.
• Myrrha, an Ionian female Slave, and the Favourite Mistress of Sardanapalus.
• Women composing the Harem of Sardanapalus, Guards, Attendants, Chaldean Priests, Medes, etc., etc.
  [_]

  Speakers' names have been abbreviated in this text. The abbreviations for major speakers are as follows:

  • For Sar. read Sardanapalus
  • For Sal. read Salemenes
  • For Myr. read Myrrha
  • For Pan. read Pania
  • For Bel. read Beleses
  • For Arb. read Arbaces
  • For Zam. read Zames
  • For Alt. read Altada
  • For Sfe. read Sfero
  • For Zar. read Zarina

Scene.—A Hall in the Royal Palace of Nineveh.

ACT I.

Scene I.

—A Hall in the Palace.
Salemenes
(solus).
He hath wronged his queen, but still he is her lord;
He hath wronged my sister—still he is my brother;
He hath wronged his people—still he is their sovereign—
And I must be his friend as well as subject:
He must not perish thus. I will not see
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years
Of Empire ending like a shepherd's tale;
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart
There is a careless courage which Corruption
Has not all quenched, and latent energies,
Repressed by circumstance, but not destroyed—
Steeped, but not drowned, in deep voluptuousness.
If born a peasant, he had been a man
To have reached an empire: to an empire born,
He will bequeath none; nothing but a name,
Which his sons will not prize in heritage:—
Yet—not all lost—even yet—he may redeem
His sloth and shame, by only being that
Which he should be, as easily as the thing
He should not be and is. Were it less toil
To sway his nations than consume his life?
To head an army than to rule a harem?
He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his soul,
And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield not
Health like the chase, nor glory like the war—
He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound
[Sound of soft music heard from within.
To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute—
The lyre—the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings
Of lulling instruments, the softening voices
Of women, and of beings less than women,
Must chime in to the echo of his revel,
While the great King of all we know of earth
Lolls crowned with roses, and his diadem
Lies negligently by to be caught up
By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it.
Lo, where they come! already I perceive
The reeking odours of the perfumed trains,
And see the bright gems of the glittering girls,
At once his Chorus and his Council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garbed, and scarce less female,
The grandson of Semiramis, the Man-Queen.—
He comes! Shall I await him? yes, and front him,
And tell him what all good men tell each other,
Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves
Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.

Scene II.

Enter Sardanapalus effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of Women and young Slaves.
Sar.
(speaking to some of his attendants).
Let the pavilion over the Euphrates
Be garlanded, and lit, and furnished forth
For an especial banquet; at the hour
Of midnight we will sup there: see nought wanting,
And bid the galley be prepared. There is
A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear river:
We will embark anon. Fair Nymphs, who deign
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus,
We'll meet again in that the sweetest hour,
When we shall gather like the stars above us,
And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs;
Till then, let each be mistress of her time,
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha, choose;
Wilt thou along with them or me?

Myr.
My Lord—

Sar.
My Lord!—my Life! why answerest thou so coldly?
It is the curse of kings to be so answered.
Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine—say, wouldst thou
Accompany our guests, or charm away
The moments from me?

Myr.
The King's choice is mine.

Sar.
I pray thee say not so: my chiefest joy
Is to contribute to thine every wish.
I do not dare to breathe my own desire,
Lest it should clash with thine; for thou art still
Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for others.

Myr.
I would remain: I have no happiness
Save in beholding thine; yet—

Sar.
Yet! what yet?
Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.

Myr.
I think the present is the wonted hour
Of council; it were better I retire.

Sal.
(comes forward and says)
The Ionian slave says well: let her retire.

Sal.
Who answers? How now, brother?

Sal.
The Queen's brother,
And your most faithful vassal, royal Lord.

Sar.
(addressing his train).
As I have said, let all dispose their hours
Till midnight, when again we pray your presence.
[The court retiring.
(To Myrrha, who is going.)
Myrrha! I thought thou wouldst remain.

Myr.
Great King,
Thou didst not say so.

Sar.
But thou looked'st it:
I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.

Myr.
Sire! your brother—

Sal.
His Consort's brother, minion of Ionia!
How darest thou name me and not blush?

Sar.
Not blush!
Thou hast no more eyes than heart to make her crimson
Like to the dying day on Caucasus,
Where sunset tints the snow with rosy shadows,
And then reproach her with thine own cold blindness,
Which will not see it. What! in tears, my Myrrha?

Sal.
Let them flow on; she weeps for more than one,
And is herself the cause of bitterer tears.

Sar.
Curséd be he who caused those tears to flow!

Sal.
Curse not thyself—millions do that already.

Sar.
Thou dost forget thee: make me not remember
I am a monarch.

Sal.
Would thou couldst!

Myr.
My sovereign,
I pray, and thou, too, Prince, permit my absence.

Sar.
Since it must be so, and this churl has checked
Thy gentle spirit, go; but recollect
That we must forthwith meet: I had rather lose
An empire than thy presence.

[Exit Myrrha.
Sal.
It may be,
Thou wilt lose both—and both for ever!

Sar.
Brother!
I can at least command myself, who listen
To language such as this: yet urge me not
Beyond my easy nature.

Sal.
'Tis beyond
That easy—far too easy—idle nature,
Which I would urge thee. O that I could rouse thee!
Though 'twere against myself.

Sar.
By the god Baal!
The man would make me tyrant.

Sal.
So thou art.
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice,
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury,
The negligence, the apathy, the evils
Of sensual sloth—produce ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
The false and fond examples of thy lusts
Corrupt no less than they oppress, and sap
In the same moment all thy pageant power
And those who should sustain it; so that whether
A foreign foe invade, or civil broil
Distract within, both will alike prove fatal:
The first thy subjects have no heart to conquer;
The last they rather would assist than vanquish.

Sar.
Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece of the people?

Sal.
Forgiveness of the Queen, my sister wrongs;
A natural love unto my infant nephews;
Faith to the King, a faith he may need shortly,
In more than words; respect for Nimrod's line;
Also, another thing thou knowest not.

Sar.
What's that?

Sal.
To thee an unknown word.

Sar.
Yet speak it;
I love to learn.

Sal.
Virtue.

Sar.
Not know the word!
Never was word yet rung so in my ears—
Worse than the rabble's shout, or splitting trumpet:
I've heard thy sister talk of nothing else.

Sal.
To change the irksome theme, then, hear of vice.

Sar.
From whom?

Sal.
Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen
Unto the echoes of the Nation's voice.

Sar.
Come, I'm indulgent, as thou knowest, patient,
As thou hast often proved—speak out, what moves thee?

Sal.
Thy peril.

Sar.
Say on.

Sal.
Thus, then: all the nations,
For they are many, whom thy father left
In heritage, are loud in wrath against thee.

Sar.
'Gainst me!! What would the slaves?

Sal.
A king.

Sar.
And what
Am I then?

Sal.
In their eyes a nothing; but
In mine a man who might be something still.

Sar.
The railing drunkards! why, what would they have?
Have they not peace and plenty?

Sal.
Of the first
More than is glorious; of the last, far less
Than the King recks of.

Sar.
Whose then is the crime,
But the false satraps, who provide no better?

Sal.
And somewhat in the Monarch who ne'er looks
Beyond his palace walls, or if he stirs
Beyond them, 'tis but to some mountain palace,
Till summer heats wear down. O glorious Baal!
Who built up this vast empire, and wert made
A God, or at the least shinest like a God
Through the long centuries of thy renown,
This, thy presumed descendant, ne'er beheld
As king the kingdoms thou didst leave as hero,
Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, and peril!
For what? to furnish imposts for a revel,
Or multiplied extortions for a minion.

Sar.
I understand thee—thou wouldst have me go
Forth as a conqueror. By all the stars
Which the Chaldeans read—the restless slaves
Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes,
And lead them forth to glory.

Sal.
Wherefore not?
Semiramis—a woman only—led
These our Assyrians to the solar shores
Of Ganges.

Sar.
'Tis most true. And how returned?

Sal.
Why, like a man—a hero; baffled, but
Not vanquished. With but twenty guards, she made
Good her retreat to Bactria.

Sar.
And how many
Left she behind in India to the vultures?

Sal.
Our annals say not.

Sar.
Then I will say for them—
That she had better woven within her palace
Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards
Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens,
And wolves, and men—the fiercer of the three,
Her myriads of fond subjects. Is this Glory?
Then let me live in ignominy ever.

Sal.
All warlike spirits have not the same fate.
Semiramis, the glorious parent of
A hundred kings, although she failed in India,
Brought Persia—Media—Bactria—to the realm
Which she once swayed—and thou mightst sway.

Sar.
I sway them—
She but subdued them.

Sal.
It may be ere long
That they will need her sword more than your sceptre.

Sar.
There was a certain Bacchus, was there not?
I've heard my Greek girls speak of such—they say
He was a God, that is, a Grecian god,
An idol foreign to Assyria's worship,
Who conquered this same golden realm of Ind
Thou prat'st of, where Semiramis was vanquished.

Sal.
I have heard of such a man; and thou perceiv'st
That he is deemed a God for what he did.

Sar.
And in his godship I will honour him—
Not much as man. What, ho! my cupbearer!

Sal.
What means the King?

Sar.
To worship your new God
And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I say.

Enter Cupbearer.
Sar.
(addressing the Cupbearer).
Bring me the golden goblet thick with gems,
Which bears the name of Nimrod's chalice. Hence,
Fill full, and bear it quickly.

[Exit Cupbearer.
Sal.
Is this moment
A fitting one for the resumption of
Thy yet unslept-off revels?

Re-enter Cupbearer, with wine.
Sar.
(taking the cup from him).
Noble kinsman,
If these barbarian Greeks of the far shores
And skirts of these our realms lie not, this Bacchus
Conquered the whole of India, did he not?

Sal.
He did, and thence was deemed a Deity.

Sar.
Not so:—of all his conquests a few columns.
Which may be his, and might be mine, if I
Thought them worth purchase and conveyance, are
The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed,
The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke.
But here—here in this goblet is his title
To immortality—the immortal grape
From which he first expressed the soul, and gave
To gladden that of man, as some atonement
For the victorious mischiefs he had done.
Had it not been for this, he would have been
A mortal still in name as in his grave;
And, like my ancestor Semiramis,
A sort of semi-glorious human monster.
Here's that which deified him—let it now
Humanise thee; my surly, chiding brother,
Pledge me to the Greek God!

Sal.
For all thy realms
I would not so blaspheme our country's creed.

Sar.
That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero,
That he shed blood by oceans; and no God,
Because he turned a fruit to an enchantment,
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
The young, makes Weariness forget his toil,
And Fear her danger; opens a new world
When this, the present, palls. Well, then I pledge thee
And him as a true man, who did his utmost
In good or evil to surprise mankind.

[Drinks.
Sal.
Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour?

Sar.
(To the Cupbearer.)
Boy, retire.

[Exit Cupbearer.
Sal.
I would but have recalled thee from thy dream;
Better by me awakened than rebellion.

Sar.
Who should rebel? or why? what cause? pretext?
I am the lawful King, descended from
A race of Kings who knew no predecessors.
What have I done to thee, or to the people,
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up against me?

Sal.
Of what thou hast done to me, I speak not.

Sar.
But
Thou think'st that I have wronged the Queen: is't not so?

Sal.
Think! Thou hast wronged her!

Sar.
Patience, Prince, and hear me.
She has all power and splendour of her station,
Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs,
The homage and the appanage of sovereignty.
I married her as monarchs wed—for state,
And loved her as most husbands love their wives.
If she or thou supposedst I could link me
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate,
Ye knew nor me—nor monarchs—nor mankind.

Sal.
I pray thee, change the theme: my blood disdains
Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not
Reluctant love even from Assyria's lord!
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves.
The Queen is silent.

Sar.
And why not her brother?

Sal.
I only echo thee the voice of empires,
Which he who long neglects not long will govern.

Sar.
The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up Pyramids,
Or Babylonian walls.

Sal.
Yet these are trophies
More worthy of a people and their prince
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,
And lavished treasures, and contemnéd virtues.

Sar.
Or for my trophies I have founded cities:
There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built
In one day—what could that blood-loving beldame,
My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis,
Do more, except destroy them?

Sal.
'Tis most true;
I own thy merit in those founded cities,
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse
Which shames both them and thee to coming ages.

Sar.
Shame me! By Baal, the cities, though well built,
Are not more goodly than the verse! Say what
Thou wilt 'gainst me, my mode of life or rule,
But nothing 'gainst the truth of that brief record.
Why, those few lines contain the history
Of all things human: hear—“Sardanapalus,
The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.
Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip.”

Sal.
A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,
For a king to put up before his subjects!

Sar.
Oh, thou wouldst have me doubtless set up edicts—
“Obey the king—contribute to his treasure—
Recruit his phalanx—spill your blood at bidding—
Fall down and worship, or get up and toil.”
Or thus—“Sardanapalus on this spot
Slew fifty thousand of his enemies.
These are their sepulchres, and this his trophy.”
I leave such things to conquerors; enough
For me, if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less, and glide
Ungroaning to the tomb: I take no license
Which I deny to them. We all are men.

Sal.
Thy Sires have been revered as Gods—

Sar.
In dust
And death, where they are neither Gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are Gods;
At least they banqueted upon your Gods,
And died for lack of farther nutriment.
Those Gods were merely men; look to their issue—
I feel a thousand mortal things about me,
But nothing godlike,—unless it may be
The thing which you condemn, a disposition
To love and to be merciful, to pardon
The follies of my species, and (that's human)
To be indulgent to my own.

Sal.
Alas!
The doom of Nineveh is sealed.—Woe—woe
To the unrivalled city!

Sar.
What dost dread?

Sal.
Thou art guarded by thy foes: in a few hours
The tempest may break out which overwhelms thee,
And thine and mine; and in another day
What is shall be the past of Belus' race.

Sar.
What must we dread?

Sal.
Ambitious treachery,
Which has environed thee with snares; but yet
There is resource: empower me with thy signet
To quell the machinations, and I lay
The heads of thy chief foes before thy feet.

Sar.
The heads—how many?

Sal.
Must I stay to number
When even thine own's in peril? Let me go;
Give me thy signet—trust me with the rest.

Sar.
I will trust no man with unlimited lives.
When we take those from others, we nor know
What we have taken, nor the thing we give.

Sal.
Wouldst thou not take their lives who seek for thine?

Sar.
That's a hard question—But I answer, Yes.
Cannot the thing be done without? Who are they
Whom thou suspectest?—Let them be arrested.

Sal.
I would thou wouldst not ask me; the next moment
Will send my answer through thy babbling troop
Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the palace,
Even to the city, and so baffle all.—
Trust me.

Sar.
Thou knowest I have done so ever;
Take thou the signet.

[Gives the signet.
Sal.
I have one more request.

Sar.
Name it.

Sal.
That thou this night forbear the banquet
In the pavilion over the Euphrates.

Sar.
Forbear the banquet! Not for all the plotters
That ever shook a kingdom! Let them come,
And do their worst: I shall not blench for them;
Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the goblet;
Nor crown me with a single rose the less;
Nor lose one joyous hour.—I fear them not.

Sal.
But thou wouldst arm thee, wouldst thou not, if needful?

Sar.
Perhaps. I have the goodliest armour, and
A sword of such a temper, and a bow,
And javelin, which might furnish Nimrod forth:
A little heavy, but yet not unwieldy.
And now I think on't, 'tis long since I've used them,
Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother?

Sal.
Is this a time for such fantastic trifling?—
If need be, wilt thou wear them?

Sar.
Will I not?
Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves
Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the sword
Till they shall wish it turned into a distaff.

Sal.
They say thy Sceptre's turned to that already.

Sar.
That's false! but let them say so: the old Greeks,
Of whom our captives often sing, related
The same of their chief hero, Hercules,
Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest
The populace of all the nations seize
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.

Sal.
They did not speak thus of thy fathers.

Sar.
No;
They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat;
And never changed their chains but for their armour:
Now they have peace and pastime, and the license
To revel and to rail; it irks me not.
I would not give the smile of one fair girl
For all the popular breath that e'er divided
A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues
Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding,
That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread
Their noisome clamour?

Sal.
You have said they are men;
As such their hearts are something.

Sar.
So my dogs' are;
And better, as more faithful:—but, proceed;
Thou hast my signet:—since they are tumultuous,
Let them be tempered, yet not roughly, till
Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain,
Given or received; we have enough within us,
The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,
Not to add to each other's natural burthen
Of mortal misery, but rather lessen,
By mild reciprocal alleviation,
The fatal penalties imposed on life:
But this they know not, or they will not know.
I have, by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:
I made no wars, I added no new imposts,
I interfered not with their civic lives,
I let them pass their days as best might suit them,
Passing my own as suited me.

Sal.
Thou stopp'st
Short of the duties of a king; and therefore
They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.

Sar.
They lie.—Unhappily, I am unfit
To be aught save a monarch; else for me
The meanest Mede might be the king instead.

Sal.
There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so.

Sar.
What mean'st thou!—'tis thy secret; thou desirest
Few questions, and I'm not of curious nature.
Take the fit steps; and, since necessity
Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne'er
Was man who more desired to rule in peace
The peaceful only: if they rouse me, better
They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes,
“The Mighty Hunter!” I will turn these realms
To one wide desert chase of brutes, who were,
But would no more, by their own choice, be human.
What they have found me, they belie; that which
They yet may find me—shall defy their wish
To speak it worse; and let them thank themselves.

Sal.
Then thou at last canst feel?

Sar.
Feel! who feels not
Ingratitude?

Sal.
I will not pause to answer
With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee,
And thou may'st yet be glorious in thy reign,
As powerful in thy realm. Farewell!

[Exit Salemenes.
Sar.
(solus).
Farewell!
He's gone; and on his finger bears my signet,
Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern
As I am heedless; and the slaves deserve
To feel a master. What may be the danger,
I know not: he hath found it, let him quell it.
Must I consume my life—this little life—
In guarding against all may make it less?
It is not worth so much! It were to die
Before my hour, to live in dread of death,
Tracing revolt; suspecting all about me,
Because they are near; and all who are remote,
Because they are far. But if it should be so—
If they should sweep me off from Earth and Empire,
Why, what is Earth or Empire of the Earth?
I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image;
To die is no less natural than those
Acts of this clay! 'Tis true I have not shed
Blood as I might have done, in oceans, till
My name became the synonyme of Death—
A terror and a trophy. But for this
I feel no penitence; my life is love:
If I must shed blood, it shall be by force.
Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein
Hath flowed for me, nor hath the smallest coin
Of Nineveh's vast treasures e'er been lavished
On objects which could cost her sons a tear:
If then they hate me, 'tis because I hate not:
If they rebel, 'tis because I oppress not.
Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,
And mowed down like the grass, else all we reap
Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest
Of discontents infecting the fair soil,
Making a desert of fertility.—
I'll think no more.—Within there, ho!

Enter an Attendant.
Sar.
Slave, tell
The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence.

Attend.
King, she is here.

Myrrha enters.
Sar.
(apart to Attendant).
(Addressing Myrrha.)
Beautiful being!
Thou dost almost anticipate my heart;
It throbbed for thee, and here thou comest: let me
Deem that some unknown influence, some sweet oracle,
Communicates between us, though unseen,
In absence, and attracts us to each other.

Myr.
There doth.

Sar.
I know there doth, but not its name:
What is it?

Myr.
In my native land a God,
And in my heart a feeling like a God's,
Exalted; yet I own 'tis only mortal;
For what I feel is humble, and yet happy—
That is, it would be happy; but—

[Myrrha pauses.
Sar.
There comes
For ever something between us and what
We deem our happiness: let me remove
The barrier which that hesitating accent
Proclaims to thine, and mine is sealed.

Myr.
My Lord!—

Sar.
My Lord—my King—Sire—Sovereign; thus it is—
For ever thus, addressed with awe. I ne'er
Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet's
Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons
Have gorged themselves up to equality,
Or I have quaffed me down to their abasement.
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names,
Lord—King—Sire—Monarch—nay, time was I prized them;
That is, I suffered them—from slaves and nobles;
But when they falter from the lips I love,
The lips which have been pressed to mine, a chill
Comes o'er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood
Of this my station, which represses feeling
In those for whom I have felt most, and makes me
Wish that I could lay down the dull tiara,
And share a cottage on the Caucasus
With thee—and wear no crowns but those of flowers.

Myr.
Would that we could!

Sar.
And dost thou feel this?—Why?

Myr.
Then thou wouldst know what thou canst never know.

Sar.
And that is—

Myr.
The true value of a heart;
At least, a woman's.

Sar.
I have proved a thousand—
A thousand, and a thousand.

Myr.
Hearts?

Sar.
I think so.

Myr.
Not one! the time may come thou may'st.

Sar.
It will.
Hear, Myrrha; Salemenes has declared—
Or why or how he hath divined it, Belus,
Who founded our great realm, knows more than I—
But Salemenes hath declared my throne
In peril.

Myr.
He did well.

Sar.
And say'st thou so?
Thou whom he spurned so harshly, and now dared
Drive from our presence with his savage jeers,
And made thee weep and blush?

Myr.
I should do both
More frequently, and he did well to call me
Back to my duty. But thou spakest of peril
Peril to thee—

Sar.
Aye, from dark plots and snares
From Medes—and discontented troops and nations.
I know not what—a labyrinth of things—
A maze of muttered threats and mysteries:
Thou know'st the man—it is his usual custom.
But he is honest. Come, we'll think no more on't—
But of the midnight festival.

Myr.
'Tis time
To think of aught save festivals. Thou hast not
Spurned his sage cautions?

Sar.
What?—and dost thou fear?

Myr.
Fear!—I'm a Greek, and how should I fear death?
A slave, and wherefore should I dread my freedom?

Sar.
Then wherefore dost thou turn so pale?

Myr.
I love.

Sar.
And do not I? I love thee far—far more
Than either the brief life or the wide realm,
Which, it may be, are menaced;—yet I blench not.

Myr.
That means thou lovest nor thyself nor me;
For he who loves another loves himself,
Even for that other's sake. This is too rash:
Kingdoms and lives are not to be so lost.

Sar.
Lost!—why, who is the aspiring chief who dared
Assume to win them?

Myr.
Who is he should dread
To try so much? When he who is their ruler
Forgets himself—will they remember him?

Sar.
Myrrha!

Myr.
Frown not upon me: you have smiled
Too often on me not to make those frowns
Bitterer to bear than any punishment
Which they may augur.—King, I am your subject!
Master, I am your slave! Man, I have loved you!—
Loved you, I know not by what fatal weakness,
Although a Greek, and born a foe to monarchs—
A slave, and hating fetters—an Ionian,
And, therefore, when I love a stranger, more
Degraded by that passion than by chains!
Still I have loved you. If that love were strong
Enough to overcome all former nature,
Shall it not claim the privilege to save you?

Sar.
Save me, my beauty! Thou art very fair,
And what I seek of thee is love—not safety.

Myr.
And without love where dwells security?

Sar.
I speak of woman's love.

Myr.
The very first
Of human life must spring from woman's breast,
Your first small words are taught you from her lips,
Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs
Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing,
When men have shrunk from the ignoble care
Of watching the last hour of him who led them.

Sar.
My eloquent Ionian! thou speak'st music:
The very chorus of the tragic song
I have heard thee talk of as the favourite pastime
Of thy far father-land. Nay, weep not—calm thee.

Myr.
I weep not.—But I pray thee, do not speak
About my fathers or their land.

Sar.
Yet oft
Thou speakest of them.

Myr.
True—true: constant thought
Will overflow in words unconsciously;
But when another speaks of Greeks, it wounds me.

Sar.
Well, then, how wouldst thou save me, as thou saidst?

Myr.
By teaching thee to save thyself, and not
Thyself alone, but these vast realms, from all
The rage of the worst war—the war of brethren.

Sar.
Why, child, I loathe all war, and warriors;
I live in peace and pleasure: what can man
Do more?

Myr.
Alas! my Lord, with common men
There needs too oft the show of war to keep
The substance of sweet peace; and, for a king,
'Tis sometimes better to be feared than loved.

Sar.
And I have never sought but for the last.

Myr.
And now art neither.

Sar.
Dost thou say so, Myrrha?

Myr.
I speak of civic popular love, self-love,
Which means that men are kept in awe and law,
Yet not oppressed—at least they must not think so,
Or, if they think so, deem it necessary,
To ward off worse oppression, their own passions.
A King of feasts, and flowers, and wine, and revel,
And love, and mirth, was never King of Glory.

Sar.
Glory! what's that?

Myr.
Ask of the Gods thy fathers.

Sar.
They cannot answer; when the priests speak for them,
'Tis for some small addition to the temple.

Myr.
Look to the annals of thine Empire's founders.

Sar.
They are so blotted o'er with blood, I cannot.
But what wouldst have? the Empire has been founded.
I cannot go on multiplying empires.

Myr.
Preserve thine own.

Sar.
At least, I will enjoy it.
Come, Myrrha, let us go on to the Euphrates:
The hour invites, the galley is prepared,
And the pavilion, decked for our return,
In fit adornment for the evening banquet,
Shall blaze with beauty and with light, until
It seems unto the stars which are above us
Itself an opposite star; and we will sit
Crowned with fresh flowers like—

Myr.
Victims.

Sar.
No, like sovereigns,
The Shepherd Kings of patriarchal times,
Who knew no brighter gems than summer wreaths,
And none but tearless triumphs. Let us on.

Enter Pania.
Pan.
May the King live for ever!

Sar.
Not an hour
Longer than he can love. How my soul hates
This language, which makes life itself a lie,
Flattering dust with eternity. Well, Pania!
Be brief.

Pan.
I am charged by Salemenes to
Reiterate his prayer unto the King,
That for this day, at least, he will not quit
The palace: when the General returns,
He will adduce such reasons as will warrant
His daring, and perhaps obtain the pardon
Of his presumption.

Sar.
What! am I then cooped?
Already captive? can I not even breathe
The breath of heaven? Tell prince Salemenes,
Were all Assyria raging round the walls
In mutinous myriads, I would still go forth.

Pan.
I must obey, and yet—

Myr.
Oh, Monarch, listen.—
How many a day and moon thou hast reclined
Within these palace walls in silken dalliance,
And never shown thee to thy people's longing;
Leaving thy subjects' eyes ungratified,
The satraps uncontrolled, the Gods unworshipped,
And all things in the anarchy of sloth,
Till all, save evil, slumbered through the realm!
And wilt thou not now tarry for a day,—
A day which may redeem thee? Wilt thou not
Yield to the few still faithful a few hours,
For them, for thee, for thy past fathers' race,
And for thy sons' inheritance?

Pan.
'Tis true!
From the deep urgency with which the Prince
Despatched me to your sacred presence, I
Must dare to add my feeble voice to that
Which now has spoken.

Sar.
No, it must not be.

Myr.
For the sake of thy realm!

Sar.
Away!

Pan.
For that
Of all thy faithful subjects, who will rally
Round thee and thine.

Sar.
These are mere fantasies:
There is no peril:—'tis a sullen scheme
Of Salemenes, to approve his zeal,
And show himself more necessary to us.

Myr.
By all that's good and glorious take this counsel.

Sar.
Business to-morrow.

Myr.
Aye—or death to-night.

Sar.
Why let it come then unexpectedly,
'Midst joy and gentleness, and mirth and love;
So let me fall like the plucked rose!—far better
Thus than be withered.

Myr.
Then thou wilt not yield,
Even for the sake of all that ever stirred
A monarch into action, to forego
A trifling revel.

Sar.
No.

Myr.
Then yield for mine;
For my sake!

Sar.
Thine, my Myrrha!

Myr.
'Tis the first
Boon which I ever asked Assyria's king.

Sar.
That's true, and, wer't my kingdom, must be granted.
Well, for thy sake, I yield me. Pania, hence!
Thou hear'st me.

Pan.
And obey.

[Exit Pania.
Sar.
I marvel at thee.
What is thy motive, Myrrha, thus to urge me?

Myr.
Thy safety; and the certainty that nought
Could urge the Prince thy kinsman to require
Thus much from thee, but some impending danger.

Sar.
And if I do not dread it, why shouldst thou?

Myr.
Because thou dost not fear, I fear for thee.

Sar.
To-morrow thou wilt smile at these vain fancies.

Myr.
If the worst come, I shall be where none weep,
And that is better than the power to smile.
And thou?

Sar.
I shall be King, as heretofore.

Myr.
Where?

Sar.
With Baal, Nimrod, and Semiramis,
Sole in Assyria, or with them elsewhere.
Fate made me what I am—may make me nothing—
But either that or nothing must I be:
I will not live degraded.

Myr.
Hadst thou felt
Thus always, none would ever dare degrade thee.

Sar.
And who will do so now?

Myr.
Dost thou suspect none?

Sar.
Suspect!—that's a spy's office. Oh! we lose
Ten thousand precious moments in vain words,
And vainer fears. Within there!—ye slaves, deck
The Hall of Nimrod for the evening revel;
If I must make a prison of our palace,
At least we'll wear our fetters jocundly;
If the Euphrates be forbid us, and
The summer-dwelling on its beauteous border,
Here we are still unmenaced. Ho! within there!

[Exit Sardanapalus.
Myr.
(solus).
Why do I love this man? My country's daughters
Love none but heroes. But I have no country!
The slave hath lost all save her bonds. I love him;
And that's the heaviest link of the long chain—
To love whom we esteem not. Be it so:
The hour is coming when he'll need all love,
And find none. To fall from him now were baser
Than to have stabbed him on his throne when highest
Would have been noble in my country's creed:
I was not made for either. Could I save him,
I should not love him better, but myself;
And I have need of the last, for I have fallen
In my own thoughts, by loving this soft stranger:
And yet, methinks, I love him more, perceiving
That he is hated of his own barbarians,
The natural foes of all the blood of Greece.
Could I but wake a single thought like those
Which even the Phrygians felt when battling long
'Twixt Ilion and the sea, within his heart,
He would tread down the barbarous crowds, and triumph.
He loves me, and I love him; the slave loves
Her master, and would free him from his vices.
If not, I have a means of freedom still,
And if I cannot teach him how to reign,
May show him how alone a King can leave
His throne. I must not lose him from my sight.

[Exit.

ACT II.

Scene I.

—The Portal of the same Hall of the Palace.
Beleses
(solus).
The Sun goes down: methinks he sets more slowly,
Taking his last look of Assyria's Empire.
How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,
Like the blood he predicts. If not in vain,
Thou Sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise,
I have outwatched ye, reading ray by ray
The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble
For what he brings the nations, 'tis the furthest
Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm!
An earthquake should announce so great a fall—
A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk,
To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon
Its everlasting page the end of what
Seemed everlasting; but oh! thou true Sun!
The burning oracle of all that live,
As fountain of all life, and symbol of
Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit
Thy lore unto calamity? Why not
Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine
All-glorious burst from ocean? why not dart
A beam of hope athwart the future years,
As of wrath to its days? Hear me! oh, hear me!
I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy servant—
I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall,
And bowed my head beneath thy mid-day beams,
When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watched
For thee, and after thee, and prayed to thee,
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and feared thee,
And asked of thee, and thou hast answered—but
Only to thus much: while I speak, he sinks—
Is gone—and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge,
To the delighted West, which revels in
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is
Death, so it be but glorious? 'Tis a sunset;
And mortals may be happy to resemble
The Gods but in decay.

Enter Arbaces by an inner door.
Arb.
Beleses, why
So wrapt in thy devotions? Dost thou stand
Gazing to trace thy disappearing God
Into some realm of undiscovered day?
Our business is with night—'tis come.

Bel.
But not
Gone.

Arb.
Let it roll on—we are ready.

Bel.
Yes.
Would it were over!

Arb.
Does the prophet doubt,
To whom the very stars shine Victory?

Bel.
I do not doubt of Victory—but the Victor.

Arb.
Well, let thy science settle that. Meantime
I have prepared as many glittering spears
As will out-sparkle our allies—your planets.
There is no more to thwart us. The she-king,
That less than woman, is even now upon
The waters with his female mates. The order
Is issued for the feast in the pavilion.
The first cup which he drains will be the last
Quaffed by the line of Nimrod.

Bel.
'Twas a brave one.

Arb.
And is a weak one—'tis worn out—we'll mend it.

Bel.
Art sure of that?

Arb.
Its founder was a hunter—
I am a soldier—what is there to fear?

Bel.
The soldier.

Arb.
And the priest, it may be: but
If you thought thus, or think, why not retain
Your king of concubines? why stir me up?
Why spur me to this enterprise? your own
No less than mine?

Bel.
Look to the sky!

Arb.
I look.

Bel.
What seest thou?

Arb.
A fair summer's twilight, and
The gathering of the stars.

Bel.
And midst them, mark
Yon earliest, and the brightest, which so quivers,
As it would quit its place in the blue ether.

Arb.
Well?

Bel.
'Tis thy natal ruler—thy birth planet.

Arb.
(touching his scabbard).
My star is in this scabbard: when it shines,
It shall out-dazzle comets. Let us think
Of what is to be done to justify
Thy planets and their portents. When we conquer,
They shall have temples—aye, and priests—and thou
Shalt be the pontiff of—what Gods thou wilt;
For I observe that they are ever just,
And own the bravest for the most devout.

Bel.
Aye, and the most devout for brave—thou hast not
Seen me turn back from battle.

Arb.
No; I own thee
As firm in fight as Babylonia's captain,
As skilful in Chaldea's worship: now,
Will it but please thee to forget the priest,
And be the warrior?

Bel.
Why not both?

Arb.
The better;
And yet it almost shames me, we shall have
So little to effect. This woman's warfare
Degrades the very conqueror. To have plucked
A bold and bloody despot from his throne,
And grappled with him, clashing steel with steel,
That were heroic or to win or fall;
But to upraise my sword against this silkworm,
And hear him whine, it may be—

Bel.
Do not deem it:
He has that in him which may make you strife yet;
And were he all you think, his guards are hardy,
And headed by the cool, stern Salemenes.

Arb.
They'll not resist.

Bel.
Why not? they are soldiers.

Arb.
True,
And therefore need a soldier to command them.

Bel.
That Salemenes is.

Arb.
But not their King.
Besides, he hates the effeminate thing that governs,
For the Queen's sake, his sister. Mark you not
He keeps aloof from all the revels?

Bel.
But
Not from the council—there he is ever constant.

Arb.
And ever thwarted: what would you have more
To make a rebel out of? A fool reigning,
His blood dishonoured, and himself disdained:
Why, it is his revenge we work for.

Bel.
Could
He but be brought to think so: this I doubt of.

Arb.
What, if we sound him?

Bel.
Yes—if the time served.

Enter Balea.
Bal.
Satraps! The king commands your presence at
The feast to-night.

Bel.
To hear is to obey.
In the pavilion?

Bal.
No; here in the palace.

Arb.
How! in the palace? it was not thus ordered.

Bal.
It is so ordered now.

Arb.
And why?

Bal.
I know not.
May I retire?

Arb.
Stay.

Bel.
(to Arb. aside).
Hush! let him go his way.
(Alternately to Bal.)
Yes, Balea, thank the Monarch, kiss the hem
Of his imperial robe, and say, his slaves
Will take the crumbs he deigns to scatter from
His royal table at the hour—was't midnight?

Bal.
It was: the place, the hall of Nimrod. Lords,
I humble me before you, and depart.

[Exit Balea.
Arb.
I like not this same sudden change of place;
There is some mystery: wherefore should he change it?

Bel.
Doth he not change a thousand times a day?
Sloth is of all things the most fanciful—
And moves more parasangs in its intents
Than generals in their marches, when they seek
To leave their foe at fault.—Why dost thou muse?

Arb.
He loved that gay pavilion,—it was ever
His summer dotage.

Bel.
And he loved his Queen—
And thrice a thousand harlotry besides—
And he has loved all things by turns, except
Wisdom and Glory.

Arb.
Still—I like it not.
If he has changed—why, so must we: the attack
Were easy in the isolated bower,
Beset with drowsy guards and drunken courtiers;
But in the hall of Nimrod—

Bel.
Is it so?
Methought the haughty soldier feared to mount
A throne too easily—does it disappoint thee
To find there is a slipperier step or two
Than what was counted on?

Arb.
When the hour comes,
Thou shalt perceive how far I fear or no.
Thou hast seen my life at stake—and gaily played for:
But here is more upon the die—a kingdom.

Bel.
I have foretold already—thou wilt win it:
Then on, and prosper.

Arb.
Now were I a soothsayer,
I would have boded so much to myself.
But be the stars obeyed—I cannot quarrel
With them, nor their interpreter. Who's here?

Enter Salemenes.
Sal.
Satraps!

Bel.
My Prince!

Sal.
Well met—I sought ye both,
But elsewhere than the palace.

Arb.
Wherefore so?

Sal.
'Tis not the hour.

Arb.
The hour!—what hour?

Sal.
Of midnight.

Bel.
Midnight, my Lord!

Sal.
What, are you not invited?

Bel.
Oh! yes—we had forgotten.

Sal.
Is it usual
Thus to forget a Sovereign's invitation?

Arb.
Why—we but now received it.

Sal.
Then why here?

Arb.
On duty.

Sal.
On what duty?

Bel.
On the state's.
We have the privilege to approach the presence;
But found the Monarch absent.

Sal.
And I too
Am upon duty.

Arb.
May we crave its purport?

Sal.
To arrest two traitors. Guards! Within there!

Enter Guards.
Sal.
(continuing).
Satraps,
Your swords.

Bel.
(delivering his).
My lord, behold my scimitar.

Arb.
(drawing his sword).
Take mine.

Sal.
(advancing).
I will.

Arb.
But in your heart the blade—
The hilt quits not this hand.

Sal.
(drawing).
How! dost thou brave me?
Tis well—this saves a trial, and false mercy.
Soldiers, hew down the rebel!

Arb.
Soldiers! Aye—
Alone you dare not.

Sal.
Alone! foolish slave—
What is there in thee that a Prince should shrink from
Of open force? We dread thy treason, not
Thy strength: thy tooth is nought without its venom—
The serpent's, not the lion's. Cut him down.

Bel.
(interposing).
Arbaces! Are you mad? Have I not rendered
My sword? Then trust like me our Sovereign's justice.

Arb.
No—I will sooner trust the stars thou prat'st of,
And this slight arm, and die a king at least
Of my own breath and body—so far that
None else shall chain them.

Sal.
(to the Guards).
You hear him and me.
Take him not,—kill.

[The Guards attack Arbaces, who defends himself valiantly and dexterously till they waver.
Sal.
Is it even so; and must
I do the hangman's office? Recreants! see
How you should fell a traitor.

[Salemenes attacks Arbaces.
Enter Sardanapalus and Train.
Sar.
Hold your hands—
Upon your lives, I say. What, deaf or drunken?
My sword! O fool, I wear no sword: here, fellow,
Give me thy weapon.

[To a Guard.
[Sardanapalus snatches a sword from one of the soldiers, and rushes between the combatants—they separate.
Sar.
In my very palace!
What hinders me from cleaving you in twain,
Audacious brawlers?

Bel.
Sire, your justice.

Sal.
Or—
Your weakness.

Sar.
(raising the sword).
How?

Sal.
Strike! so the blow's repeated
Upon yon traitor—whom you spare a moment,
I trust, for torture—I'm content.

Sar.
What—him!
Who dares assail Arbaces?

Sal.
I!

Sar.
Indeed!
Prince, you forget yourself, Upon what warrant?

Sal.
(showing the signet).
Thine.

Arb.
(confused).
The King's!

Sal.
Yes! and let the King confirm it.

Sar.
I parted not from this for such a purpose.

Sal.
You parted with it for your safety—I
Employed it for the best. Pronounce in person.
Here I am but your slave—a moment past
I was your representative.

Sar.
Then sheathe
Your swords.

[Arbaces and Salemenes return their swords to the scabbards.]
Sal.
Mine's sheathed: I pray you sheathe not yours:
'Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety.

Sar.
A heavy one; the hilt, too, hurts my hand.
(To a Guard.)
Here, fellow, take thy weapon back. Well, sirs,
What doth this mean?

Bel.
The Prince must answer that.

Sal.
Truth upon my part, treason upon theirs.

Sar.
Treason—Arbaces! treachery and Beleses!
That were an union I will not believe.

Bel.
Where is the proof?

Sal.
I'll answer that, if once
The king demands your fellow-traitor's sword.

Arb.
(to Sal.).
A sword which hath been drawn as oft as thine
Against his foes.

Sal.
And now against his brother,
And in an hour or so against himself.

Sar.
That is not possible: he dared not; no—
No—I'll not hear of such things. These vain bickerings
Are spawned in courts by base intrigues, and baser
Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives.
You must have been deceived, my brother.

Sal.
First
Let him deliver up his weapon, and
Proclaim himself your subject by that duty,
And I will answer all.

Sar.
Why, if I thought so—
But no, it cannot be: the Mede Arbaces—
The trusty, rough, true soldier—the best captain
Of all who discipline our nations—No,
I'll not insult him thus, to bid him render
The scimitar to me he never yielded
Unto our enemies. Chief, keep your weapon.

Sal.
(delivering back the signet).
Monarch, take back your signet.

Sar.
No, retain it;
But use it with more moderation.

Sal.
Sire,
I used it for your honour, and restore it
Because I cannot keep it with my own.
Bestow it on Arbaces.

Sar.
So I should:
He never asked it.

Sal.
Doubt not, he will have it,
Without that hollow semblance of respect.

Bel.
I know not what hath prejudiced the Prince
So strongly 'gainst two subjects, than whom none
Have been more zealous for Assyria's weal.

Sal.
Peace, factious priest, and faithless soldier! thou
Unit'st in thy own person the worst vices
Of the most dangerous orders of mankind.
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies
For those who know thee not. Thy fellow's sin
Is, at the least, a bold one, and not tempered
By the tricks taught thee in Chaldea.

Bel.
Hear him,
My liege—the son of Belus! he blasphemes
The worship of the land, which bows the knee
Before your fathers.

Sar.
Oh! for that I pray you
Let him have absolution. I dispense with
The worship of dead men; feeling that I
Am mortal, and believing that the race
From whence I sprung are—what I see them—ashes.

Bel.
King! Do not deem so: they are with the stars,
And—

Sar.
You shall join them ere they will rise,
If you preach farther—Why, this is rank treason.

Sal.
My lord!

Sar.
To school me in the worship of
Assyria's idols! Let him be released—
Give him his sword.

Sal.
My Lord, and King, and Brother,
I pray ye pause.

Sar.
Yes, and be sermonised,
And dinned, and deafened with dead men and Baal,
And all Chaldea's starry mysteries.

Bel.
Monarch! respect them.

Sar.
Oh! for that—I love them;
I love to watch them in the deep blue vault,
And to compare them with my Myrrha's eyes;
I love to see their rays redoubled in
The tremulous silver of Euphrates' wave,
As the light breeze of midnight crisps the broad
And rolling water, sighing through the sedges
Which fringe his banks: but whether they may be
Gods, as some say, or the abodes of Gods,
As others hold, or simply lamps of night,
Worlds—or the lights of Worlds—I know nor care not.
There's something sweet in my uncertainty
I would not change for your Chaldean lore;
Besides, I know of these all clay can know
Of aught above it, or below it—nothing.
I see their brilliancy and feel their beauty—
When they shine on my grave I shall know neither.

Bel.
For neither, Sire, say better.

Sar.
I will wait,
If it so please you, Pontiff, for that knowledge.
In the mean time receive your sword, and know
That I prefer your service militant
Unto your ministry—not loving either.

Sal.
(aside).
His lusts have made him mad. Then must I save him,
Spite of himself.

Sar.
Please you to hear me, Satraps!
And chiefly thou, my priest, because I doubt thee
More than the soldier; and would doubt thee all
Wert thou not half a warrior: let us part
In peace—I'll not say pardon—which must be
Earned by the guilty; this I'll not pronounce ye,
Although upon this breath of mine depends
Your own; and, deadlier for ye, on my fears.
But fear not—for that I am soft, not fearful—
And so live on. Were I the thing some think me,
Your heads would now be dripping the last drops
Of their attainted gore from the high gates
Of this our palace, into the dry dust,
Their only portion of the coveted kingdom
They would be crowned to reign o'er—let that pass.
As I have said, I will not deem ye guilty,
Nor doom ye guiltless. Albeit better men
Than ye or I stand ready to arraign you;
And should I leave your fate to sterner judges,
And proofs of all kinds, I might sacrifice
Two men, who, whatsoe'er they now are, were
Once honest. Ye are free, sirs.

Arb.
Sire, this clemency—

Bel.
(interrupting him).
Is worthy of yourself; and, although innocent,
We thank—

Sar.
Priest! keep your thanksgivings for Belus;
His offspring needs none.

Bel.
But being innocent—

Sar.
Be silent.—Guilt is loud. If ye are loyal,
Ye are injured men, and should be sad, not grateful.

Bel.
So we should be, were justice always done
By earthly power omnipotent; but Innocence
Must oft receive her right as a mere favour.

Sar.
That's a good sentence for a homily,
Though not for this occasion. Prithee keep it
To plead thy Sovereign's cause before his people.

Bel.
I trust there is no cause.

Sar.
No cause, perhaps;
But many causers:—if ye meet with such
In the exercise of your inquisitive function
On earth, or should you read of it in heaven
In some mysterious twinkle of the stars,
Which are your chronicles, I pray you note,
That there are worse things betwixt earth and heaven
Than him who ruleth many and slays none;
And, hating not himself, yet loves his fellows
Enough to spare even those who would not spare him
Were they once masters—but that's doubtful. Satraps!
Your swords and persons are at liberty
To use them as ye will—but from this hour
I have no call for either. Salemenes!
Follow me.

[Exeunt Sardanapalus, Salemenes, and the Train, etc., leaving Arbaces and Beleses.
Arb.
Beleses!

Bel.
Now, what think you?

Arb.
That we are lost.

Bel.
That we have won the kingdom.

Arb.
What? thus suspected—with the sword slung o'er us
But by a single hair, and that still wavering,
To be blown down by his imperious breath
Which spared us—why, I know not.

Bel.
Seek not why;
But let us profit by the interval.
The hour is still our own—our power the same—
The night the same we destined. He hath changed
Nothing except our ignorance of all
Suspicion into such a certainty
As must make madness of delay.

Arb.
And yet—

Bel.
What, doubting still?

Arb.
He spared our lives, nay, more,
Saved them from Salemenes.

Bel.
And how long
Will he so spare? till the first drunken minute.

Arb.
Or sober, rather. Yet he did it nobly;
Gave royally what we had forfeited
Basely—

Bel.
Say bravely.

Arb.
Somewhat of both, perhaps—
But it has touched me, and, whate'er betide,
I will no further on.

Bel.
And lose the world!

Arb.
Lose any thing except my own esteem.

Bel.
I blush that we should owe our lives to such
A king of distaffs!

Arb.
But no less we owe them;
And I should blush far more to take the grantor's!

Bel.
Thou may'st endure whate'er thou wilt—the stars
Have written otherwise.

Arb.
Though they came down,
And marshalled me the way in all their brightness,
I would not follow.

Bel.
This is weakness—worse
Than a scared beldam's dreaming of the dead,
And waking in the dark.—Go to—go to.

Arb.
Methought he looked like Nimrod as he spoke,
Even as the proud imperial statue stands
Looking the monarch of the kings around it,
And sways, while they but ornament, the temple.

Bel.
I told you that you had too much despised him,
And that there was some royalty within him—
What then? he is the nobler foe.

Arb.
But we
The meaner.—Would he had not spared us!

Bel.
So—
Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily?

Arb.
No—but it had been better to have died
Than live ungrateful.

Bel.
Oh, the souls of some men!
Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and
Fools treachery—and, behold, upon the sudden,
Because for something or for nothing, this
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously,
'Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turned
Into—what shall I say?—Sardanapalus!
I know no name more ignominious.

Arb.
But
An hour ago, who dared to term me such
Had held his life but lightly—as it is,
I must forgive you, even as he forgave us—
Semiramis herself would not have done it.

Bel.
No—the Queen liked no sharers of the kingdom,
Not even a husband.

Arb.
I must serve him truly—

Bel.
And humbly?

Arb.
No, sir, proudly—being honest.
I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven;
And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty.
You may do your own deeming—you have codes,
And mysteries, and corollaries of
Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction,
And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches.
And now you know me.

Bel.
Have you finished?

Arb.
Yes—
With you.

Bel.
And would, perhaps, betray as well
As quit me?

Arb.
That's a sacerdotal thought,
And not a soldier's.

Bel.
Be it what you will—
Truce with these wranglings, and but hear me.

Arb.
No—
There is more peril in your subtle spirit
Than in a phalanx.

Bel.
If it must be so—
I'll on alone.

Arb.
Alone!

Bel.
Thrones hold but one.

Arb.
But this is filled.

Bel.
With worse than vacancy—
A despised monarch. Look to it, Arbaces:
I have still aided, cherished, loved, and urged you;
Was willing even to serve you, in the hope
To serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself
Seemed to consent, and all events were friendly,
Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk
Into a shallow softness; but now, rather
Than see my country languish, I will be
Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant—
Or one or both—for sometimes both are one;
And if I win—Arbaces is my servant.

Arb.
Your servant!

Bel.
Why not? better than be slave,
The pardoned slave of she Sardanapalus!

Enter Pania.
Pan.
My Lords, I bear an order from the king.

Arb.
It is obeyed ere spoken.

Bel.
Notwithstanding,
Let's hear it.

Pan.
Forthwith, on this very night,
Repair to your respective satrapies
Of Babylon and Media.

Bel.
With our troops?

Pan.
My order is unto the Satraps and
Their household train.

Arb.
But—

Bel.
It must be obeyed:
Say, we depart.

Pan.
My order is to see you
Depart, and not to bear your answer.

Bel.
(aside).
Aye!
Well, Sir—we will accompany you hence.

Pan.
I will retire to marshal forth the guard
Of honour which befits your rank, and wait
Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds not.

[Exit Pania.
Bel.
Now then obey!

Arb.
Doubtless.

Bel.
Yes, to the gates
That grate the palace, which is now our prison—
No further.

Arb.
Thou hast harped the truth indeed!
The realm itself, in all its wide extension,
Yawns. dungeons at each step for thee and me.

Bel.
Graves!

Arb.
If I thought so, this good sword should dig
One more than mine.

Bel.
It shall have work enough.
Let me hope better than thou augurest;
At present, let us hence as best we may.
Thou dost agree with me in understanding
This order as a sentence?

Arb.
Why, what other
Interpretation should it bear? it is
The very policy of Orient monarchs—
Pardon and poison—favours and a sword—
A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep.
How many Satraps in his father's time—
For he I own is, or at least was, bloodless—

Bel.
But will not—can not be so now.

Arb.
I doubt it.
How many Satraps have I seen set out
In his Sire's day for mighty Vice-royalties,
Whose tombs are on their path! I know not how,
But they all sickened by the way, it was
So long and heavy.

Bel.
Let us but regain
The free air of the city, and we'll shorten
The journey.

Arb.
'Twill be shortened at the gates,
It may be.

Bel.
No; they hardly will risk that.
They mean us to die privately, but not
Within the palace or the city walls,
Where we are known, and may have partisans:
If they had meant to slay us here, we were
No longer with the living. Let us hence.

Arb.
If I but thought he did not mean my life—

Bel.
Fool! hence—what else should despotism alarmed
Mean? Let us but rejoin our troops, and march.

Arb.
Towards our provinces?

Bel.
No; towards your kingdom.
There's time—there's heart, and hope, and power, and means—
Which their half measures leave us in full scope.—
Away!

Arb.
And I even yet repenting must
Relapse to guilt!

Bel.
Self-defence is a virtue,
Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I say!
Let's leave this place, the air grows thick and choking,
And the walls have a scent of night-shade—hence!
Let us not leave them time for further council.
Our quick departure proves our civic zeal;
Our quick departure hinders our good escort,
The worthy Pania, from anticipating
The orders of some parasangs from hence:
Nay, there's no other choice, but — hence, I say.

[Exit with Arbaces, who follows reluctantly.
Enter Sardanapalus and Salemenes.
Sar.
Well, all is remedied, and without bloodshed,
That worst of mockeries of a remedy;
We are now secure by these men's exile.

Sal.
Yes,
As he who treads on flowers is from the adder
Twined round their roots.

Sar.
Why, what wouldst have me do?

Sal.
Undo what you have done.

Sar.
Revoke my pardon?

Sal.
Replace the crown now tottering on your temples.

Sar.
That were tyrannical.

Sal.
But sure.

Sar.
We are so.
What danger can they work upon the frontier?

Sal.
They are not there yet—never should they be so,
Were I well listened to.

Sar.
Nay, I have listened
Impartially to thee—why not to them?

Sal.
You may know that hereafter; as it is,
I take my leave to order forth the guard.

Sar.
And you will join us at the banquet?

Sal.
Sire,
Dispense with me—I am no wassailer:
Command me in all service save the Bacchant's.

Sar.
Nay, but 'tis fit to revel now and then.

Sal.
And fit that some should watch for those who revel
Too oft. Am I permitted to depart?

Sar.
Yes—Stay a moment, my good Salemenes,
My brother—my best subject—better Prince
Than I am King. You should have been the monarch,
And I—I know not what, and care not; but
Think not I am insensible to all
Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind,
Though oft-reproving sufferance of my follies.
If I have spared these men against thy counsel,
That is, their lives—it is not that I doubt
The advice was sound; but, let them live: we will not
Cavil about their lives—so let them mend them.
Their banishment will leave me still sound sleep,
Which their death had not left me.

Sal.
Thus you run
The risk to sleep for ever, to save traitors—
A moment's pang now changed for years of crime.
Still let them be made quiet.

Sar.
Tempt me not;
My word is past.

Sal.
But it may be recalled.

Sar.
'Tis royal.

Sal.
And should therefore be decisive.
This half-indulgence of an exile serves
But to provoke—a pardon should be full,
Or it is none.

Sar.
And who persuaded me
After I had repealed them, or at least
Only dismissed them from our presence, who
Urged me to send them to their satrapies?

Sal.
True; that I had forgotten; that is, Sire,
If they e'er reached their Satrapies—why, then,
Reprove me more for my advice.

Sar.
And if
They do not reach them—look to it!—in safety,
In safety, mark me—and security—
Look to thine own.

Sal.
Permit me to depart;
Their safety shall be cared for.

Sar.
Get thee hence, then;
And, prithee, think more gently of thy brother.

Sal.
Sire, I shall ever duly serve my sovereign.

[Exit Salemenes.
Sar.
(solus).
That man is of a temper too severe;
Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free
From all the taints of common earth—while I
Am softer clay, impregnated with flowers:
But as our mould is, must the produce be.
If I have erred this time, 'tis on the side
Where Error sits most lightly on that sense,
I know not what to call it; but it reckons
With me ofttimes for pain, and sometimes pleasure;
A spirit which seems placed about my heart
To count its throbs, not quicken them, and ask
Questions which mortal never dared to ask me,
Nor Baal, though an oracular deity—
Albeit his marble face majestical
Frowns as the shadows of the evening dim
His brows to changed expression, till at times
I think the statue looks in act to speak.
Away with these vain thoughts, I will be joyous—
And here comes Joy's true herald.

Enter Myrrha.
Myr.
King! the sky
Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder,
In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show
In forkéd flashes a commanding tempest.
Will you then quit the palace?

Sar.
Tempest, say'st thou?

Myr.
Aye, my good lord.

Sar.
For my own part, I should be
Not ill content to vary the smooth scene,
And watch the warring elements; but this
Would little suit the silken garments and
Smooth faces of our festive friends. Say, Myrrha,
Art thou of those who dread the roar of clouds?

Myr.
In my own country we respect their voices
As auguries of Jove.

Sar.
Jove!—aye, your Baal—
Ours also has a property in thunder,
And ever and anon some falling bolt
Proves his divinity,—and yet sometimes
Strikes his own altars.

Myr.
That were a dread omen.

Sar.
Yes—for the priests. Well, we will not go forth
Beyond the palace walls to-night, but make
Our feast within.

Myr.
Now, Jove be praised! that he
Hath heard the prayer thou wouldst not hear. The Gods
Are kinder to thee than thou to thyself,
And flash this storm between thee and thy foes,
To shield thee from them.

Sar.
Child, if there be peril,
Methinks it is the same within these walls
As on the river's brink.

Myr.
Not so; these walls
Are high and strong, and guarded. Treason has
To penetrate through many a winding way,
And massy portal; but in the pavilion
There is no bulwark.

Sar.
No, nor in the palace,
Nor in the fortress, nor upon the top
Of cloud-fenced Caucasus, where the eagle sits
Nested in pathless clefts, if treachery be:
Even as the arrow finds the airy king,
The steel will reach the earthly. But be calm;
The men, or innocent or guilty, are
Banished, and far upon their way.

Myr.
They live, then?

Sar.
So sanguinary? Thou!

Myr.
I would not shrink
From just infliction of due punishment
On those who seek your life: were't otherwise,
I should not merit mine. Besides, you heard
The princely Salemenes.

Sar.
This is strange;
The gentle and the austere are both against me,
And urge me to revenge.

Myr.
'Tis a Greek virtue.

Sar.
But not a kingly one—I'll none on't; or
If ever I indulge in't, it shall be
With kings—my equals.

Myr.
These men sought to be so.

Sar.
Myrrha, this is too feminine, and springs
From fear—

Myr.
For you.

Sar.
No matter, still 'tis fear.
I have observed your sex, once roused to wrath,
Are timidly vindictive to a pitch
Of perseverance, which I would not copy.
I thought you were exempt from this, as from
The childish helplessness of Asian women.

Myr.
My Lord, I am no boaster of my love,
Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour,
And will partake your fortunes. You may live
To find one slave more true than subject myriads:
But this the Gods avert! I am content
To be beloved on trust for what I feel,
Rather than prove it to you in your griefs,
Which might not yield to any cares of mine.

Sar.
Grief cannot come where perfect love exists,
Except to heighten it, and vanish from
That which it could not scare away. Let's in—
The hour approaches, and we must prepare
To meet the invited guests who grace our feast.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

Scene I.

—The Hall of the Palace illuminated—Sardanapalus and his Guests at Table.—A storm without, and Thunder occasionally heard during the Banquet.
Sar.
Fill full! why this is as it should be: here
Is my true realm, amidst bright eyes and faces
Happy as fair! Here sorrow cannot reach.

Zam.
Nor elsewhere—where the King is, pleasure sparkles.

Sar.
Is not this better now than Nimrod's huntings,
Or my wild Grandam's chase in search of kingdoms
She could not keep when conquered?

Alt.
Mighty though
They were, as all thy royal line have been,
Yet none of those who went before have reached
The acmé of Sardanapalus, who
Has placed his joy in peace—the sole true glory.

Sar.
And pleasure, good Altada, to which glory
Is but the path. What is it that we seek?
Enjoyment! We have cut the way short to it,
And not gone tracking it through human ashes,
Making a grave with every footstep.

Zam.
No;
All hearts are happy, and all voices bless
The King of peace—who holds a world in jubilee.

Sar.
Art sure of that? I have heard otherwise;
Some say that there be traitors.

Zam.
Traitors they
Who dare to say so!—'Tis impossible.
What cause?

Sar.
What cause? true,—fill the goblet up;
We will not think of them: there are none such,
Or if there be, they are gone.

Alt.
[Zames and the Guests kneel, and exclaim—

[It thunders as they kneel; some start up in confusion.
Zam.
Why do you rise, my friends? in that strong peal
His father gods consented.

Myr.
Menaced, rather.
King, wilt thou bear this mad impiety?

Sar.
Impiety!—nay, if the sires who reigned
Before me can be Gods, I'll not disgrace
Their lineage. But arise, my pious friends;
Hoard your devotion for the Thunderer there:
I seek but to be loved, not worshipped.

Alt.
Both—
Both you must ever be by all true subjects.

Sar.
Methinks the thunders still increase: it is
An awful night.

Myr.
Oh yes, for those who have
No palace to protect their worshippers.

Sar.
That's true, my Myrrha; and could I convert
My realm to one wide shelter for the wretched,
I'd do it.

Myr.
Thou'rt no God, then—not to be
Able to work a will so good and general,
As thy wish would imply.

Sar.
And your Gods, then,
Who can, and do not?

Myr.
Do not speak of that,
Lest we provoke them.

Sar.
True—, they love not censure
Better than mortals. Friends, a thought has struck me:
Were there no temples, would there, think ye, be
Air worshippers? that is, when it is angry,
And pelting as even now.

Myr.
The Persian prays
Upon his mountain.

Sar.
Yes, when the Sun shines.

Myr.
And I would ask if this your palace were
Unroofed and desolate, how many flatterers
Would lick the dust in which the King lay low?

Alt.
The fair Ionian is too sarcastic
Upon a nation whom she knows not well;
The Assyrians know no pleasure but their King's,
And homage is their pride.

Sar.
Nay, pardon, guests,
The fair Greek's readiness of speech.

Alt.
Pardon! sire:
We honour her of all things next to thee.
Hark! what was that?

Zam.
That! nothing but the jar
Of distant portals shaken by the wind.

Alt.
It sounded like the clash of—hark again!

Zam.
The big rain pattering on the roof.

Sar.
No more.
Myrrha, my love, hast thou thy shell in order?
Sing me a song of Sappho; her, thou know'st,
Who in thy country threw—

Enter Pania, with his sword and garments bloody, and disordered. The guests rise in confusion.
Pan.
(to the Guards).
Look to the portals;
And with your best speed to the walls without.
Your arms! To arms! The King's in danger. Monarch
Excuse this haste,—'tis faith.

Sar.
Speak on.

Pan.
It is
As Salemenes feared; the faithless Satraps—

Sar.
You are wounded—give some wine. Take breath, good Pania.

Pan.
'Tis nothing—a mere flesh wound. I am worn
More with my speed to warn my sovereign,
Than hurt in his defence.

Myr.
Well, Sir, the rebels?

Pan.
Soon as Arbaces and Beleses reached
Their stations in the city, they refused
To march; and on my attempt to use the power
Which I was delegated with, they called
Upon their troops, who rose in fierce defiance.

Myr.
All?

Pan.
Too many.

Sar.
Spare not of thy free speech,
To spare mine ears—the truth.

Pan.
My own slight guard
Were faithful, and what's left of it is still so.

Myr.
And are these all the force still faithful?

Pan.
No—
The Bactrians, now led on by Salemenes,
Who even then was on his way, still urged
By strong suspicion of the Median chiefs,
Are numerous, and make strong head against
The rebels, fighting inch by inch, and forming
An orb around the palace, where they mean
To centre all their force, and save the King.
(He hesitates.)
I am charged to—

Myr.
'Tis no time for hesitation.

Pan.
Prince Salemenes doth implore the King
To arm himself, although but for a moment,
And show himself unto the soldiers: his
Sole presence in this instant might do more
Than hosts can do in his behalf.

Sar.
What, ho!
My armour there.

Myr.
And wilt thou?

Sar.
Will I not?
Ho, there!—but seek not for the buckler: 'tis
Too heavy:—a light cuirass and my sword.
Where are the rebels?

Pan.
Scarce a furlong's length
From the outward wall the fiercest conflict rages.

Sar.
Then I may charge on horseback. Sfero, ho!
Order my horse out.—There is space enough
Even in our courts, and by the outer gate,
To marshal half the horsemen of Arabia.

[Exit Sfero for the armour.
Myr.
How I do love thee!

Sar.
I ne'er doubted it.

Myr.
But now I know thee.

Sar.
(to his Attendant).
Bring down my spear too—
Where's Salemenes?

Pan.
Where a soldier should be,
In the thick of the fight.

Sar.
Then hasten to him—Is
The path still open, and communication
Left 'twixt the palace and the phalanx?

Pan.
'Twas
When I late left him, and I have no fear;
Our troops were steady, and the phalanx formed.

Sar.
Tell him to spare his person for the present,
And that I will not spare my own—and say,
I come.

Pan.
There's victory in the very word.

[Exit Pania.
Sar.
Altada—Zames—forth, and arm ye! There
Is all in readiness in the armoury.
See that the women are bestowed in safety
In the remote apartments: let a guard
Be set before them, with strict charge to quit
The post but with their lives—command it, Zames.
Altada, arm yourself, and return here;
Your post is near our person.

[Exeunt Zames, Altada, and all save Myrrha.
Enter Sfero and others with the King's Arms, etc.
Sfe.
King! your armour.

Sar.
(arming himself).
Give me the cuirass—so: my baldric; now
My sword: I had forgot the helm—where is it?
That's well—no, 'tis too heavy; you mistake, too—
It was not this I meant, but that which bears
A diadem around it.

Sfe.
Sire, I deemed
That too conspicuous from the precious stones
To risk your sacred brow beneath—and trust me,
This is of better metal, though less rich.

Sar.
You deemed! Are you too turned a rebel? Fellow!
Your part is to obey: return, and—no—
It is too late—I will go forth without it.

Sfe.
At least, wear this.

Sar.
Wear Caucasus! why, 'tis
A mountain on my temples.

Sfe.
Sire, the meanest
Soldier goes not forth thus exposed to battle.
All men will recognise you—for the storm
Has ceased, and the moon breaks forth in her brightness.

Sar.
I go forth to be recognised, and thus
Shall be so sooner. Now—my spear! I'm armed.
[In going stops short, and turns to Sfero.
Sfero—I had forgotten—bring the mirror.

Sfe.
The mirror, Sire?

Sar.
Yes, sir, of polished brass,
Brought from the spoils of India—but be speedy.

[Exit Sfero.
Sar.
Myrrha, retire unto a place of safety.
Why went you not forth with the other damsels?

Myr.
Because my place is here.

Sar.
And when I am gone—

Myr.
I follow.

Sar.
You! to battle?

Myr.
If it were so,
'Twere not the first Greek girl had trod the path.
I will await here your return.

Sar.
The place
Is spacious, and the first to be sought out,
If they prevail; and, if it be so,
And I return not—

Myr.
Still we meet again.

Sar.
How?

Myr.
In the spot where all must meet at last—
In Hades! if there be, as I believe,
A shore beyond the Styx; and if there be not,
In ashes.

Sar.
Darest thou so much?

Myr.
I dare all things
Except survive what I have loved, to be
A rebel's booty: forth, and do your bravest.

Re-enter Sfero with the mirror.
Sar.
(looking at himself).
This cuirass fits me well, the baldric better,
And the helm not at all. Methinks I seem
[Flings away the helmet after trying it again.
Passing well in these toys; and now to prove them.
Altada! Where's Altada?

Sfe.
Waiting, Sire,
Without: he has your shield in readiness.

Sar.
True—I forgot—he is my shield-bearer
By right of blood, derived from age to age.
Myrrha, embrace me;—yet once more—once more—
Love me, whate'er betide. My chiefest glory
Shall be to make me worthier of your love.

Myr.
[Exeunt Sardanapalus and Sfero.
[She draws forth a small vial.

Enter Altada.
Alt.
Ho, Sfero, ho!

Myr.
He is not here; what wouldst thou with him? How
Goes on the conflict?

Alt.
Dubiously and fiercely.

Myr.
And the King?

Alt.
Like a king. I must find Sfero,
And bring him a new spear with his own helmet.
He fights till now bare-headed, and by far
Too much exposed. The soldiers knew his face,
And the foe too; and in the moon's broad light,
His silk tiara and his flowing hair
Make him a mark too royal. Every arrow
Is pointed at the fair hair and fair features,
And the broad fillet which crowns both.

Myr.
Ye Gods,
Who fulminate o'er my father's land, protect him!
Were you sent by the King?

Alt.
By Salemenes,
Who sent me privily upon this charge,
Without the knowledge of the careless sovereign.
The King! the King fights as he revels! ho!
What, Sfero! I will seek the armoury—
He must be there.

[Exit Altada.
Myr.
'Tis no dishonour—no—
'Tis no dishonour to have loved this man.
I almost wish now, what I never wished
Before—that he were Grecian. If Alcides
Were shamed in wearing Lydian Omphale's
She-garb, and wielding her vile distaff; surely
He, who springs up a Hercules at once,
Nursed in effeminate arts from youth to manhood,
And rushes from the banquet to the battle,
As though it were a bed of love, deserves
That a Greek girl should be his paramour,
And a Greek bard his minstrel—a Greek tomb
His monument. How goes the strife, sir?

Enter an Officer.
Officer.
Lost,
Lost almost past recovery. Zames! Where
Is Zames?

Myr.
Posted with the guard appointed
To watch before the apartment of the women.

[Exit Officer.
Myr.
(sola).
He's gone; and told no more than that all's lost!
What need have I to know more? In those words,
Those little words, a kingdom and a king,
A line of thirteen ages, and the lives
Of thousands, and the fortune of all left
With life, are merged; and I, too, with the great,
Like a small bubble breaking with the wave
Which bore it, shall be nothing. At the least,
My fate is in my keeping: no proud victor
Shall count me with his spoils.

Enter Pania.
Pan.
Away with me,
Myrrha, without delay; we must not lose
A moment—all that's left us now.

Myr.
The King?

Pan.
Sent me here to conduct you hence, beyond
The river, by a secret passage.

Myr.
Then
He lives—

Pan.
And charged me to secure your life,
And beg you to live on for his sake, till
He can rejoin you.

Myr.
Will he then give way?

Pan.
Not till the last. Still, still he does whate'er
Despair can do; and step by step disputes
The very palace.

Myr.
They are here, then:—aye,
Their shouts come ringing through the ancient halls,
Never profaned by rebel echoes till
This fatal night. Farewell, Assyria's line!
Farewell to all of Nimrod! Even the name
Is now no more.

Pan.
Away with me—away!

Myr.
No: I'll die here!—Away, and tell your King
I loved him to the last.

Enter Sardanapalus and Salemenes with Soldiers. Pania quits Myrrha, and ranges himself with them.
Sar.
Since it is thus,
We'll die where we were born—in our own halls.
Serry your ranks—stand firm. I have despatched
A trusty satrap for the guard of Zames,
All fresh and faithful; they'll be here anon.
All is not over.—Pania, look to Myrrha.

[Pania returns towards Myrrha.
Sal.
We have breathing time; yet once more charge, my friends—
One for Assyria!

Sar.
Rather say for Bactria!
My faithful Bactrians, I will henceforth be
King of your nation, and we'll hold together
This realm as province.

Sal.
Hark! they come—they come.

Enter Beleses and Arbaces with the Rebels.
Arb.
Set on, we have them in the toil. Charge! charge!

Bel.
On! on!—Heaven fights for us, and with us—On!

[They charge the King and Salemenes with their troops, who defend themselves till the arrival of Zames with the Guard before mentioned. The Rebels are then driven off, and pursued by Salemenes, etc. As the King is going to join the pursuit, Beleses crosses him.
Bel.
Ho! tyrant—I will end this war.

Sar.
Even so,
My warlike priest, and precious prophet, and
Grateful and trusty subject: yield, I pray thee.
I would reserve thee for a fitter doom,
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood.

Bel.
Thine hour is come.

Sar.
No, thine.—I've lately read,
Though but a young astrologer, the stars;
And ranging round the zodiac, found thy fate
In the sign of the Scorpion, which proclaims
That thou wilt now be crushed.

Bel.
But not by thee.

[They fight; Beleses is wounded and disarmed.
Sar.
(raising his sword to despatch him, exclaims)—
Now call upon thy planets, will they shoot
From the sky to preserve their seer and credit?
[A party of Rebels enter and rescue Beleses. They assail the King, who in turn, is rescued by a Party of his Soldiers, who drive the Rebels off.
The villain was a prophet after all.
Upon them—ho! there—victory is ours.

[Exit in pursuit.
Myr.
(to Pan.).
Pursue! Why stand'st thou here, and leavest the ranks
Of fellow-soldiers conquering without thee?

Pan.
The King's command was not to quit thee.

Myr.
Me!
Think not of me—a single soldier's arm
Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard,
I need no guard: what, with a world at stake,
Keep watch upon a woman? Hence, I say,
Or thou art shamed! Nay, then, I will go forth,
A feeble female, 'midst their desperate strife,
And bid thee guard me there—where thou shouldst shield
Thy sovereign.

[Exit Myrrha.
Pan.
Yet stay, damsel!—She's gone.
If aught of ill betide her, better I
Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds her
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights
For that too; and can I do less than he,
Who never flashed a scimitar till now?
Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though
In disobedience to the monarch.

[Exit Pania.
Enter Altada and Sfero by an opposite door.
Alt.
Myrrha!
What, gone? yet she was here when the fight raged,
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them?

Sfe.
I saw both safe, when late the rebels fled;
They probably are but retired to make
Their way back to the harem.

Alt.
If the King
Prove victor, as it seems even now he must,
And miss his own Ionian, we are doomed
To worse than captive rebels.

Sfe.
Let us trace them:
She cannot be fled far; and, found, she makes
A richer prize to our soft sovereign
Than his recovered kingdom.

Alt.
Baal himself
Ne'er fought more fiercely to win empire, than
His silken son to save it: he defies
All augury of foes or friends; and like
The close and sultry summer's day, which bodes
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such thunder
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth.
The man's inscrutable.

Sfe.
Not more than others.
All are the sons of circumstance: away—
Let's seek the slave out, or prepare to be
Tortured for his infatuation, and
Condemned without a crime.

[Exeunt.
Enter Salemenes and Soldiers, etc.
Sal.
The triumph is
Flattering: they are beaten backward from the palace,
And we have opened regular access
To the troops stationed on the other side
Euphrates, who may still be true; nay, must be,
When they hear of our victory. But where
Is the chief victor? where's the King?

Enter Sardanapalus, cum suis, etc., and Myrrha.
Sar.
Here, brother.

Sal.
Unhurt, I hope.

Sar.
Not quite; but let it pass.
We've cleared the palace—

Sal.
And I trust the city.
Our numbers gather; and I've ordered onward
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved,
All fresh and fiery, to be poured upon them
In their retreat, which soon will be a flight.

Sar.
It is already, or at least they marched
Faster than I could follow with my Bactrians,
Who spared no speed. I am spent: give me a seat.

Sal.
There stands the throne, Sire.

Sar.
'Tis no place to rest on,
For mind nor body: let me have a couch,
[They place a seat.
A peasant's stool, I care not what: so—now
I breathe more freely.

Sal.
This great hour has proved
The brightest and most glorious of your life.

Sar.
And the most tiresome. Where's my cupbearer?
Bring me some water.

Sal.
(smiling).
'Tis the first time he
Ever had such an order: even I,
Your most austere of counsellors, would now
Suggest a purpler beverage.

Sar.
Blood—doubtless.
But there's enough of that shed; as for wine,
I have learned to-night the price of the pure element:
Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice renewed,
With greater strength than the grape ever gave me,
My charge upon the rebels. Where's the soldier
Who gave me water in his helmet?

One of the Guards.
Slain, Sire!
An arrow pierced his brain, while, scattering
The last drops from his helm, he stood in act
To place it on his brows.

Sar.
[They bring water—he drinks.

Sal.
And that bandage, Sire,
Which girds your arm?

Sar.
A scratch from brave Beleses.

Myr.
Oh! he is wounded!

Sar.
Not too much of that;
And yet it feels a little stiff and painful,
Now I am cooler.

Myr.
You have bound it with—

Sar.
The fillet of my diadem: the first time
That ornament was ever aught to me,
Save an incumbrance.

Myr.
(to the Attendants).
Summon speedily
A leech of the most skilful: pray, retire:
I will unbind your wound and tend it.

Sar.
Do so,
For now it throbs sufficiently: but what
Know'st thou of wounds? yet wherefore do I ask?
Know'st thou, my brother, where I lighted on
This minion?

Sal.
Herding with the other females,
Like frightened antelopes.

Sar.
No: like the dam
Of the young lion, femininely raging
(And femininely meaneth furiously,
Because all passions in excess are female,)
Against the hunter flying with her cub,
She urged on with her voice and gesture, and
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the soldiers,
In the pursuit.

Sal.
Indeed!

Sar.
You see, this night
Made warriors of more than me. I paused
To look upon her, and her kindled cheek;
Her large black eyes, that flashed through her long hair
As it streamed o'er her; her blue veins that rose
Along her most transparent brow; her nostril
Dilated from its symmetry; her lips
Apart; her voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute pierceth through the cymbal's clash,
Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling; her
Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born whiteness
Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up
From a dead soldier's grasp;—all these things made
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess
Of victory, or Victory herself,
Come down to hail us hers.

Sal.
(aside).
This is too much.
Again the love-fit's on him, and all's lost,
Unless we turn his thoughts. (Aloud.)
But pray thee, Sire,
Think of your wound—you said even now 'twas painful.

Sar.
That's true, too; but I must not think of it.

Sal.
I have looked to all things needful, and will now
Receive reports of progress made in such
Orders as I had given, and then return
To hear your further pleasure.

Sar.
Be it so.

Sal.
(in retiring).
Myrrha!

Myr.
Prince!

Sal.
You have shown a soul to-night,
Which, were he not my sister's lord— But now
I have no time: thou lovest the King?

Myr.
I love
Sardanapalus.

Sal.
But wouldst have him King still?

Myr.
I would not have him less than what he should be.

Sal.
Well then, to have him King, and yours, and all
He should, or should not be; to have him live,
Let him not sink back into luxury.
You have more power upon his spirit than
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce rebellion
Raging without: look well that he relapse not.

Myr.
There needed not the voice of Salemenes
To urge me on to this: I will not fail.
All that a woman's weakness can—

Sal.
Is power
Omnipotent o'er such a heart as his:
Exert it wisely.

[Exit Salemenes.
Sar.
Myrrha! what, at whispers
With my stern brother? I shall soon be jealous.

Myr.
(smiling).
You have cause, Sire; for on the earth there breathes not
A man more worthy of a woman's love,
A soldier's trust, a subject's reverence,
A king's esteem—the whole world's admiration!

Sar.
Praise him, but not so warmly. I must not
Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in aught
That throws me into shade; yet you speak truth.

Myr.
And now retire, to have your wound looked to,
Pray lean on me.

Sar.
Yes, love! but not from pain.

[Exeunt omnes.

ACT IV.

Scene I.

—Sardanapalus discovered sleeping upon a Couch, and occasionally disturbed in his slumbers, with Myrrha watching.
Myr.
(sola, gazing).
I have stolen upon his rest, if rest it be,
Which thus convulses slumber: shall I wake him?
No, he seems calmer. Oh, thou God of Quiet!
Whose reign is o'er sealed eyelids and soft dreams,
Or deep, deep sleep, so as to be unfathomed,
Look like thy brother, Death,—so still, so stirless—
For then we are happiest, as it may be, we
Are happiest of all within the realm
Of thy stern, silent, and unwakening Twin.
Again he moves—again the play of pain
Shoots o'er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake that lay so calm
Beneath the mountain shadow; or the blast
Ruffles the autumn leaves, that drooping cling
Faintly and motionless to their loved boughs.
I must awake him—yet not yet; who knows
From what I rouse him? It seems pain; but if
I quicken him to heavier pain? The fever
Of this tumultuous night, the grief too of
His wound, though slight, may cause all this, and shake
Me more to see than him to suffer. No:
Let Nature use her own maternal means,
And I await to second, not disturb her.

Sar.
(awakening).
Not so—although he multiplied the stars,
And gave them to me as a realm to share
From you and with you! I would not so purchase
The empire of Eternity. Hence—hence—
Old Hunter of the earliest brutes! and ye,
Who hunted fellow-creatures as if brutes!
Once bloody mortals—and now bloodier idols,
If your priests lie not! And thou, ghastly Beldame!
Dripping with dusky gore, and trampling on
The carcasses of Inde—away! away!
Where am I? Where the spectres? Where—No—that
Is no false phantom: I should know it 'midst
All that the dead dare gloomily raise up
From their black gulf to daunt the living. Myrrha!

Myr.
Alas! thou art pale, and on thy brow the drops
Gather like night dew. My beloved, hush—
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world,
And thou art lord of this. Be of good cheer;
All will go well.

Sar.
Thy hand—so—'tis thy hand;
'Tis flesh; grasp—clasp—yet closer, till I feel
Myself that which I was.

Myr.
At least know me
For what I am, and ever must be—thine.

Sar.
I know it now. I know this life again.
Ah, Myrrha! I have been where we shall be.

Myr.
My lord!

Sar.
I've been i' the grave—where worms are lords
And kings are—But I did not deem it so;
I thought 'twas nothing.

Myr.
So it is; except
Unto the timid, who anticipate
That which may never be.

Sar.
Oh, Myrrha! if
Sleep shows such things, what may not Death disclose?

Myr.
I know no evil Death can show, which Life
Has not already shown to those who live
Embodied longest. If there be indeed
A shore where Mind survives, 'twill be as Mind
All unincorporate: or if there flits
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay,
Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven,
And fetters us to earth—at least the phantom,
Whate'er it have to fear, will not fear Death.

Sar.
I fear it not; but I have felt—have seen—
A legion of the dead.

Myr.
And so have I.
The dust we tread upon was once alive,
And wretched. But proceed: what hast thou seen?
Speak it, 'twill lighten thy dimmed mind.

Sar.
Methought—

Myr.
Yet pause, thou art tired—in pain—exhausted; all
Which can impair both strength and spirit: seek
Rather to sleep again.

Sar.
Not now—I would not
Dream; though I know it now to be a dream
What I have dreamt:—and canst thou bear to hear it?

Myr.
I can bear all things, dreams of life or death,
Which I participate with you in semblance
Or full reality.

Sar.
And this looked real,
I tell you: after that these eyes were open,
I saw them in their flight—for then they fled.

Myr.
Say on.

Sar.
I saw, that is, I dreamed myself
Here—here—even where we are, guests as we were,
Myself a host that deemed himself but guest,
Willing to equal all in social freedom;
But, on my right hand and my left, instead
Of thee and Zames, and our customed meeting,
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark,
And deadly face; I could not recognise it,
Yet I had seen it, though I knew not where:
The features were a Giant's, and the eye
Was still, yet lighted; his long locks curled down
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose
With shaft-heads feathered from the eagle's wing,
That peeped up bristling through his serpent hair.
I invited him to fill the cup which stood
Between us, but he answered not; I filled it;
He took it not, but stared upon me, till
I trembled at the fixed glare of his eye:
I frowned upon him as a king should frown;
He frowned not in his turn, but looked upon me
With the same aspect, which appalled me more,
Because it changed not; and I turned for refuge
To milder guests, and sought them on the right,
Where thou wert wont to be. But—

[He pauses.
Myr.
What instead?

Sar.
In thy own chair—thy own place in the banquet—
I sought thy sweet face in the circle—but
Instead—a grey-haired, withered, bloody-eyed,
And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing,
Female in garb, and crowned upon the brow,
Furrowed with years, yet sneering with the passion
Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust,
Sate:—my veins curdled.

Myr.
Is this all?

Sar.
Upon
Her right hand—her lank, bird-like, right hand—stood
A goblet, bubbling o'er with blood; and on
Her left, another, filled with—what I saw not,
But turned from it and her. But all along
The table sate a range of crownéd wretches,
Of various aspects, but of one expression.

Myr.
And felt you not this a mere vision?

Sar.
No:
It was so palpable, I could have touched them.
I turned from one face to another, in
The hope to find at last one which I knew
Ere I saw theirs: but no—all turned upon me,
And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared,
Till I grew stone, as they seemed half to be,
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them,
And life in me: there was a horrid kind
Of sympathy between us, as if they
Had lost a part of death to come to me,
And I the half of life to sit by them.
We were in an existence all apart
From heaven or earth—And rather let me see
Death all than such a being!

Myr.
And the end?

Sar.
At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose
The Hunter and the Crone; and smiling on me—
Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of
The Hunter smiled upon me—I should say,
His lips, for his eyes moved not—and the woman's
Thin lips relaxed to something like a smile.
Both rose, and the crowned figures on each hand
Rose also, as if aping their chief shades—
Mere mimics even in death—but I sate still:
A desperate courage crept through every limb,
And at the last I feared them not, but laughed
Full in their phantom faces. But then—then
The Hunter laid his hand on mine: I took it,
And grasped it—but it melted from my own;
While he too vanished, and left nothing but
The memory of a hero, for he looked so.

Myr.
And was: the ancestor of heroes, too,
And thine no less.

Sar.
Aye, Myrrha, but the woman,
The female who remained, she flew upon me,
And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses;
And, flinging down the goblets on each hand,
Methought their poisons flowed around us, till
Each formed a hideous river. Still she clung;
The other phantoms, like a row of statues,
Stood dull as in our temples, but she still
Embraced me, while I shrunk from her, as if,
In lieu of her remote descendant, I
Had been the son who slew her for her incest.
Then—then—a chaos of all loathsome things
Thronged thick and shapeless: I was dead, yet feeling—
Buried, and raised again—consumed by worms,
Purged by the flames, and withered in the air!
I can fix nothing further of my thoughts,
Save that I longed for thee, and sought for thee,
In all these agonies,—and woke and found thee.

Myr.
So shalt thou find me ever at thy side,
Here and hereafter, if the last may be.
But think not of these things—the mere creations
Of late events, acting upon a frame
Unused by toil, yet over-wrought by toil—
Such as might try the sternest.

Sar.
I am better.
Now that I see thee once more, what was seen
Seems nothing.

Enter Salemenes.
Sal.
Is the king so soon awake?

Sar.
Yes, brother, and I would I had not slept;
For all the predecessors of our line
Rose up, methought, to drag me down to them.
My father was amongst them, too; but he,
I know not why, kept from me, leaving me
Between the hunter-founder of our race,
And her, the homicide and husband-killer,
Whom you call glorious.

Sal.
So I term you also,
Now you have shown a spirit like to hers.
By day-break I propose that we set forth,
And charge once more the rebel crew, who still
Keep gathering head, repulsed, but not quite quelled.

Sar.
How wears the night?

Sal.
There yet remain some hours
Of darkness: use them for your further rest.

Sar.
No, not to-night, if 'tis not gone: methought
I passed hours in that vision.

Myr.
Scarcely one;
I watched by you: it was a heavy hour,
But an hour only.

Sar.
Let us then hold council;
To-morrow we set forth.

Sal.
But ere that time,
I had a grace to seek.

Sar.
'Tis granted.

Sal.
Hear it
Ere you reply too readily; and 'tis
For your ear only.

Myr.
Prince, I take my leave.

[Exit Myrrha.
Sal.
That slave deserves her freedom.

Sar.
Freedom only!
That slave deserves to share a throne.

Sal.
Your patience—
'Tis not yet vacant, and 'tis of its partner
I come to speak with you.

Sar.
How! of the Queen?

Sal.
Even so. I judged it fitting for their safety,
That, ere the dawn, she sets forth with her children
For Paphlagonia, where our kinsman Cotta
Governs; and there, at all events, secure
My nephews and your sons their lives, and with them
Their just pretensions to the crown in case—

Sar.
I perish—as is probable: well thought—
Let them set forth with a sure escort.

Sal.
That
Is all provided, and the galley ready
To drop down the Euphrates; but ere they
Depart, will you not see—

Sar.
My sons? It may
Unman my heart, and the poor boys will weep;
And what can I reply to comfort them,
Save with some hollow hopes, and ill-worn smiles?
You know I cannot feign.

Sal.
But you can feel!
At least, I trust so: in a word, the Queen
Requests to see you ere you part—for ever.

Sar.
Unto what end? what purpose? I will grant
Aught—all that she can ask—but such a meeting.

Sal.
You know, or ought to know, enough of women,
Since you have studied them so steadily,
That what they ask in aught that touches on
The heart, is dearer to their feelings or
Their fancy, than the whole external world.
I think as you do of my sister's wish;
But 'twas her wish—she is my sister—you
Her husband—will you grant it?

Sar.
'Twill be useless:
But let her come.

Sal.
I go.

[Exit Salemenes.
Sar.
We have lived asunder
Too long to meet again—and now to meet!
Have I not cares enow, and pangs enow,
To bear alone, that we must mingle sorrows,
Who have ceased to mingle love?

Re-enter Salemenes and Zarina.
Sal.
My sister! Courage:
Shame not our blood with trembling, but remember
From whence we sprung. The Queen is present, Sire.

Zar.
I pray thee, brother, leave me.

Sal.
Since you ask it.

[Exit Salemenes.
Zar.
Alone with him! How many a year has passed,
Though we are still so young, since we have met,
Which I have worn in widowhood of heart.
He loved me not: yet he seems little changed—
Changed to me only—would the change were mutual!
He speaks not—scarce regards me—not a word,
Nor look—yet he was soft of voice and aspect,
Indifferent, not austere. My Lord!

Sar.
Zarina!

Zar.
No, not Zarina—do not say Zarina.
That tone—That word—annihilate long years,
And things which make them longer.

Sar.
'Tis too late
To think of these past dreams. Let's not reproach—
That is, reproach me not—for the last time—

Zar.
And first. I ne'er reproached you.

Sar.
'Tis most true;
And that reproof comes heavier on my heart
Than—But our hearts are not in our own power.

Zar.
Nor hands; but I gave both.

Sar.
Your brother said
It was your will to see me, ere you went
From Nineveh with—

(He hesitates.)
Zar.
Our children: it is true.
I wish to thank you that you have not divided
My heart from all that's left it now to love—
Those who are yours and mine, who look like you,
And look upon me as you looked upon me
Once—but they have not changed.

Sar.
Nor ever will.
I fain would have them dutiful.

Zar.
I cherish
Those infants, not alone from the blind love
Of a fond mother, but as a fond woman.
They are now the only tie between us.

Sar.
Deem not
I have not done you justice: rather make them
Resemble your own line than their own Sire.
I trust them with you—to you: fit them for
A throne, or, if that be denied—You have heard
Of this night's tumults?

Zar.
I had half forgotten,
And could have welcomed any grief save yours,
Which gave me to behold your face again.

Sar.
The throne—I say it not in fear—but 'tis
In peril: they perhaps may never mount it;
But let them not for this lose sight of it.
I will dare all things to bequeath it them;
But if I fail, then they must win it back
Bravely—and, won, wear it wisely, not as I
Have wasted down my royalty.

Zar.
They ne'er
Shall know from me of aught but what may honour
Their father's memory.

Sar.
Rather let them hear
The truth from you than from a trampling world.
If they be in adversity, they'll learn
Too soon the scorn of crowds for crownless Princes,
And find that all their father's sins are theirs.
My boys!—I could have borne it were I childless.

Zar.
Oh! do not say so—do not poison all
My peace left, by unwishing that thou wert
A father. If thou conquerest, they shall reign,
And honour him who saved the realm for them,
So little cared for as his own; and if—

Sar.
'Tis lost, all Earth will cry out, “thank your father!”
And they will swell the echo with a curse.

Zar.
That they shall never do; but rather honour
The name of him, who, dying like a king,
In his last hours did more for his own memory
Than many monarchs in a length of days,
Which date the flight of time, but make no annals.

Sar.
Our annals draw perchance unto their close;
But at the least, whate'er the past, their end
Shall be like their beginning—memorable.

Zar.
Yet, be not rash—be careful of your life,
Live but for those who love.

Sar.
And who are they?
A slave, who loves from passion—I'll not say
Ambition—she has seen thrones shake, and loves;
A few friends who have revelled till we are
As one, for they are nothing if I fall;
A brother I have injured—children whom
I have neglected, and a spouse—

Zar.
Who loves.

Sar.
And pardons?

Zar.
I have never thought of this,
And cannot pardon till I have condemned.

Sar.
My wife!

Zar.
Now blessings on thee for that word!
I never thought to hear it more—from thee.

Sar.
Oh! thou wilt hear it from my subjects. Yes—
These slaves whom I have nurtured, pampered, fed,
And swoln with peace, and gorged with plenty, till
They reign themselves—all monarchs in their mansions—
Now swarm forth in rebellion, and demand
His death, who made their lives a jubilee;
While the few upon whom I have no claim
Are faithful! This is true, yet monstrous.

Zar.
'Tis
Perhaps too natural; for benefits
Turn poison in bad minds.

Sar.
And good ones make
Good out of evil. Happier than the bee,
Which hives not but from wholesome flowers.

Zar.
Then reap
The honey, nor inquire whence 'tis derived.
Be satisfied—you are not all abandoned.

Sar.
My life insures me that. How long, bethink you,
Were not I yet a king, should I be mortal;
That is, where mortals are, not where they must be?

Zar.
I know not. But yet live for my—that is,
Your children's sake!

Sar.
My gentle, wronged Zarina!
I am the very slave of Circumstance
And Impulse—borne away with every breath!
Misplaced upon the throne—misplaced in life.
I know not what I could have been, but feel
I am not what I should be—let it end.
But take this with thee: if I was not formed
To prize a love like thine, a mind like thine,
Nor dote even on thy beauty—as I've doted
On lesser charms, for no cause save that such
Devotion was a duty, and I hated
All that looked like a chain for me or others
(This even Rebellion must avouch); yet hear
These words, perhaps among my last—that none
E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not
To profit by them—as the miner lights
Upon a vein of virgin ore, discovering
That which avails him nothing: he hath found it,
But 'tis not his—but some superior's, who
Placed him to dig, but not divide the wealth
Which sparkles at his feet; nor dare he lift
Nor poise it, but must grovel on, upturning
The sullen earth.

Zar.
Oh! if thou hast at length
Discovered that my love is worth esteem,
I ask no more—but let us hence together,
And I—let me say we—shall yet be happy.
Assyria is not all the earth—we'll find
A world out of our own—and be more blessed
Than I have ever been, or thou, with all
An empire to indulge thee.

Enter Salemenes.
Sal.
I must part ye—
The moments, which must not be lost, are passing.

Zar.
Inhuman brother! wilt thou thus weigh out
Instants so high and blest?

Sal.
Blest!

Zar.
He hath been
So gentle with me, that I cannot think
Of quitting.

Sal.
So—this feminine farewell
Ends as such partings end, in no departure.
I thought as much, and yielded against all
My better bodings. But it must not be.

Zar.
Not be?

Sal.
Remain, and perish—

Zar.
With my husband—

Sal.
And children.

Zar.
Alas!

Sal.
Hear me, sister, like
My sister:—all's prepared to make your safety
Certain, and of the boys too, our last hopes;
'Tis not a single question of mere feeling,
Though that were much—but 'tis a point of state:
The rebels would do more to seize upon
The offspring of their sovereign, and so crush—

Zar.
Ah! do not name it.

Sal.
Well, then, mark me: when
They are safe beyond the Median's grasp, the rebels
Have missed their chief aim—the extinction of
The line of Nimrod. Though the present King
Fall, his sons live—for victory and vengeance.

Zar.
But could not I remain, alone?

Sal.
What! leave
Your children, with two parents and yet orphans—
In a strange land—so young, so distant?

Zar.
No—
My heart will break.

Sal.
Now you know all—decide.

Sar.
Zarina, he hath spoken well, and we
Must yield awhile to this necessity.
Remaining here, you may lose all; departing,
You save the better part of what is left,
To both of us, and to such loyal hearts
As yet beat in these kingdoms.

Sal.
The time presses.

Sar.
Go, then. If e'er we meet again, perhaps
I may be worthier of you—and, if not,
Remember that my faults, though not atoned for,
Are ended. Yet, I dread thy nature will
Grieve more above the blighted name and ashes
Which once were mightiest in Assyria—than—
But I grow womanish again, and must not;
I must learn sternness now. My sins have all
Been of the softer order—hide thy tears—
I do not bid thee not to shed them—'twere
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source
Than one tear of a true and tender heart—
But let me not behold them; they unman me
Here when I had remanned myself. My brother,
Lead her away.

Zar.
Oh, God! I never shall
Behold him more!

Sal.
(striving to conduct her).
Nay, sister, I must be obeyed.

Zar.
I must remain—away! you shall not hold me.
What, shall he die alone?—I live alone?

Sal.
He shall not die alone; but lonely you
Have lived for years.

Zar.
That's false! I knew he lived,
And lived upon his image—let me go!

Sal.
(conducting her off the stage).
Nay, then, then, I must use some fraternal force,
Which you will pardon.

Zar.
Never. Help me! Oh!
Sardanapalus, wilt thou thus behold me
Torn from thee?

Sal.
Nay—then all is lost again,
If that this moment is not gained.

Zar.
My brain turns—
My eyes fail—where is he?

[She faints.
Sar.
(advancing).
No—set her down;
She's dead—and you have slain her.

Sal.
'Tis the mere
Faintness of o'erwrought passion: in the air
She will recover. Pray, keep back.— [Aside.]
I must
Avail myself of this sole moment to
Bear her to where her children are embarked,
I' the royal galley on the river.

[Salemenes bears her off.
Sar.
(solus).
This, too—
And this too must I suffer—I, who never
Inflicted purposely on human hearts
A voluntary pang! But that is false—
She loved me, and I loved her.—Fatal passion!
Why dost thou not expire at once in hearts
Which thou hast lighted up at once? Zarina!
I must pay dearly for the desolation
Now brought upon thee. Had I never loved
But thee, I should have been an unopposed
Monarch of honouring nations. To what gulfs
A single deviation from the track
Of human duties leads even those who claim
The homage of mankind as their born due,
And find it, till they forfeit it themselves!

Enter Myrrha.
Sar.
You here! Who called you?

Myr.
No one—but I heard
Far off a voice of wail and lamentation,
And thought—

Sar.
It forms no portion of your duties
To enter here till sought for.

Myr.
Though I might,
Perhaps, recall some softer words of yours
(Although they too were chiding), which reproved me,
Because I ever dreaded to intrude;
Resisting my own wish and your injunction
To heed no time nor presence, but approach you
Uncalled for:—I retire.

Sar.
Yet stay—being here.
I pray you pardon me: events have soured me
Till I wax peevish—heed it not: I shall
Soon be myself again.

Myr.
I wait with patience,
What I shall see with pleasure.

Sar.
Scarce a moment
Before your entrance in this hall, Zarina,
Queen of Assyria, departed hence.

Myr.
Ah!

Sar.
Wherefore do you start?

Myr.
Did I do so?

Sar.
'Twas well you entered by another portal,
Else you had met. That pang at least is spared her!

Myr.
I know to feel for her.

Sar.
That is too much,
And beyond nature—'tis nor mutual
Nor possible. You cannot pity her,
Nor she aught but—

Myr.
Despise the favourite slave?
Not more than I have ever scorned myself.

Sar.
Scorned! what, to be the envy of your sex,
And lord it o'er the heart of the World's lord?

Myr.
Were you the lord of twice ten thousand worlds—
As you are like to lose the one you swayed—
I did abase myself as much in being
Your paramour, as though you were a peasant—
Nay, more, if that the peasant were a Greek.

Sar.
You talk it well—

Myr.
And truly.

Sar.
In the hour
Of man's adversity all things grow daring
Against the falling; but as I am not
Quite fall'n, nor now disposed to bear reproaches,
Perhaps because I merit them too often,
Let us then part while peace is still between us.

Myr.
Part!

Sar.
Have not all past human beings parted,
And must not all the present one day part?

Myr.
Why?

Sar.
For your safety, which I will have looked to,
With a strong escort to your native land;
And such gifts, as, if you had not been all
A Queen, shall make your dowry worth a kingdom.

Myr.
I pray you talk not thus.

Sar.
The Queen is gone:
You need not shame to follow. I would fall
Alone—I seek no partners but in pleasure.

Myr.
And I no pleasure but in parting not.
You shall not force me from you.

Sar.
Think well of it—
It soon may be too late.

Myr.
So let it be;
For then you cannot separate me from you.

Sar.
And will not; but I thought you wished it.

Myr.
I!

Sar.
You spoke of your abasement.

Myr.
And I feel it
Deeply—more deeply than all things but love.

Sar.
Then fly from it.

Myr.
'Twill not recall the past—
'Twill not restore my honour, nor my heart.
No—here I stand or fall. If that you conquer,
I live to joy in your great triumph: should
Your lot be different, I'll not weep, but share it.
You did not doubt me a few hours ago.

Sar.
Your courage never—nor your love till now;
And none could make me doubt it save yourself.
Those words—

Myr.
Were words. I pray you, let the proofs
Be in the past acts you were pleased to praise
This very night, and in my further bearing,
Beside, wherever you are borne by fate.

Sar.
I am content: and, trusting in my cause,
Think we may yet be victors and return
To peace—the only victory I covet.
To me war is no glory—conquest no
Renown. To be forced thus to uphold my right
Sits heavier on my heart than all the wrongs
These men would bow me down with. Never, never
Can I forget this night, even should I live
To add it to the memory of others.
I thought to have made mine inoffensive rule
An era of sweet peace 'midst bloody annals,
A green spot amidst desert centuries,
On which the Future would turn back and smile,
And cultivate, or sigh when it could not
Recall Sardanapalus' golden reign.
I thought to have made my realm a paradise,
And every moon an epoch of new pleasures.
I took the rabble's shouts for love—the breath
Of friends for truth—the lips of woman for
My only guerdon—so they are, my Myrrha:
[He kisses her.
Kiss me. Now let them take my realm and life!
They shall have both, but never thee!

Myr.
No, never!
Man may despoil his brother man of all
That 's great or glittering—kingdoms fall, hosts yield,
Friends fail—slaves fly—and all betray—and, more
Than all, the most indebted—but a heart
That loves without self-love! 'Tis here—now prove it.

Enter Salemenes.
Sal.
I sought you—How! she here again?

Sar.
Return not
Now to reproof: methinks your aspect speaks
Of higher matter than a woman's presence.

Sal.
The only woman whom it much imports me
At such a moment now is safe in absence—
The Queen 's embarked.

Sar.
And well? say that much.

Sal.
Yes.
Her transient weakness has passed o'er; at least,
It settled into tearless silence: her
Pale face and glittering eye, after a glance
Upon her sleeping children, were still fixed
Upon the palace towers as the swift galley
Stole down the hurrying stream beneath the starlight;
But she said nothing.

Sar.
Would I felt no more
Than she has said!

Sal.
'Tis now too late to feel.
Your feelings cannot cancel a sole pang:
To change them, my advices bring sure tidings
That the rebellious Medes and Chaldees, marshalled
By their two leaders, are already up
In arms again; and, serrying their ranks,
Prepare to attack: they have apparently
Been joined by other Satraps.

Sar.
What! more rebels?
Let us be first, then.

Sal.
That were hardly prudent
Now, though it was our first intention. If
By noon to-morrow we are joined by those
I've sent for by sure messengers, we shall be
In strength enough to venture an attack,
Aye, and pursuit too; but, till then, my voice
Is to await the onset.

Sar.
I detest
That waiting; though it seems so safe to fight
Behind high walls, and hurl down foes into
Deep fosses, or behold them sprawl on spikes
Strewed to receive them, still I like it not—
My soul seems lukewarm; but when I set on them,
Though they were piled on mountains, I would have
A pluck at them, or perish in hot blood!—
Let me then charge.

Sal.
You talk like a young soldier.

Sar.
I am no soldier, but a man: speak not
Of soldiership, I loathe the word, and those
Who pride themselves upon it; but direct me
Where I may pour upon them.

Sal.
You must spare
To expose your life too hastily; 'tis not
Like mine or any other subject's breath:
The whole war turns upon it—with it; this
Alone creates it, kindles, and may quench it—
Prolong it—end it.

Sar.
Then let us end both!
'Twere better thus, perhaps, than prolong either;
I'm sick of one, perchance of both.

[A trumpet sounds without.
Sal.
Hark!

Sar.
Let us
Reply, not listen.

Sal.
And your wound!

Sar.
'Tis bound—
'Tis healed—I had forgotten it. Away!
A leech's lancet would have scratched me deeper;
The slave that gave it might be well ashamed
To have struck so weakly.

Sal.
Now, may none this hour
Strike with a better aim!

Sar.
Aye, if we conquer;
But if not, they will only leave to me
A task they might have spared their king. Upon them!

[Trumpet sounds again.
Sal.
I am with you.

Sar.
Ho, my arms! again, my arms!

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

Scene I.

—The same Hall in the Palace.
Myrrha and Balea.
Myr.
(at a window).
The day at last has broken. What a night
Hath ushered it! How beautiful in heaven!
Though varied with a transitory storm,
More beautiful in that variety!
How hideous upon earth! where Peace and Hope,
And Love and Revel, in an hour were trampled
By human passions to a human chaos,
Not yet resolved to separate elements—
'Tis warring still! And can the sun so rise,
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into
Vapours more lovely than the unclouded sky,
With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains,
And billows purpler than the Ocean's, making
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
So like we almost deem it permanent;
So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught
Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently
Scattered along the eternal vault: and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch
Of Sorrow and of Love; which they who mark not,
Know not the realms where those twin genii
(Who chasten and who purify our hearts,
So that we would not change their sweet rebukes
For all the boisterous joys that ever shook
The air with clamour) build the palaces
Where their fond votaries repose and breathe
Briefly;—but in that brief cool calm inhale
Enough of heaven to enable them to bear
The rest of common, heavy, human hours,
And dream them through in placid sufferance,
Though seemingly employed like all the rest
Of toiling breathers in allotted tasks
Of pain or pleasure, two names for one feeling,
Which our internal, restless agony
Would vary in the sound, although the sense
Escapes our highest efforts to be happy.

Bal.
You muse right calmly: and can you so watch
The sunrise which may be our last?

Myr.
It is
Therefore that I so watch it, and reproach
Those eyes, which never may behold it more,
For having looked upon it oft, too oft,
Without the reverence and the rapture due
To that which keeps all earth from being as fragile
As I am in this form. Come, look upon it,
The Chaldee's God, which, when I gaze upon,
I grow almost a convert to your Baal.

Bal.
As now he reigns in heaven, so once on earth
He swayed.

Myr.
He sways it now for more, then; never
Had earthly monarch half the power and glory
Which centres in a single ray of his.

Bal.
Surely he is a God!

Myr.
So we Greeks deem too;
And yet I sometimes think that gorgeous orb
Must rather be the abode of Gods than one
Of the immortal sovereigns. Now he breaks
Through all the clouds, and fills my eyes with light
That shuts the world out. I can look no more.

Bal.
Hark! heard you not a sound?

Myr.
No, 'twas mere fancy;
They battle it beyond the wall, and not
As in late midnight conflict in the very
Chambers: the palace has become a fortress
Since that insidious hour; and here, within
The very centre, girded by vast courts
And regal halls of pyramid proportions,
Which must be carried one by one before
They penetrate to where they then arrived,
We are as much shut in even from the sound
Of peril as from glory.

Bal.
But they reached
Thus far before.

Myr.
Yes, by surprise, and were
Beat back by valour: now at once we have
Courage and vigilance to guard us.

Bal.
May they
Prosper!

Myr.
That is the prayer of many, and
The dread of more: it is an anxious hour;
I strive to keep it from my thoughts. Alas!
How vainly!

Bal.
It is said the King's demeanour
In the late action scarcely more appalled
The rebels than astonished his true subjects.

Myr.
'Tis easy to astonish or appal
The vulgar mass which moulds a horde of slaves;
But he did bravely.

Bal.
Slew he not Beleses?
I heard the soldiers say he struck him down.

Myr.
The wretch was overthrown, but rescued to
Triumph, perhaps, o'er one who vanquished him
In fight, as he had spared him in his peril;
And by that heedless pity risked a crown.

Bal.
Hark!

Myr.
You are right; some steps approach, but slowly.

Enter Soldiers, bearing in Salemenes wounded, with a broken javelin in his side: they seat him upon one of the couches which furnish the Apartment.
Myr.
Oh, Jove!

Bal.
Then all is over.

Sal.
That is false.
Hew down the slave who says so, if a soldier.

Myr.
Spare him—he's none: a mere court butterfly,
That flutter in the pageant of a monarch.

Sal.
Let him live on, then.

Myr.
So wilt thou, I trust.

Sal.
I fain would live this hour out, and the event,
But doubt it. Wherefore did ye bear me here?

Sol.
By the King's order. When the javelin struck you,
You fell and fainted: 'twas his strict command
To bear you to this hall.

Sal.
'Twas not ill done:
For seeming slain in that cold dizzy trance,
The sight might shake our soldiers—but—'tis vain,
I feel it ebbing!

Myr.
Let me see the wound;
I am not quite skilless: in my native land
'Tis part of our instruction. War being constant,
We are nerved to look on such things.

Sol.
Best extract
The javelin.

Myr.
Hold! no, no, it cannot be.

Sal.
I am sped, then!

Myr.
With the blood that fast must follow
The extracted weapon, I do fear thy life.

Sal.
And I not. death. Where was the King when you
Conveyed me from the spot where I was stricken?

Sol.
Upon the same ground, and encouraging
With voice and gesture the dispirited troops
Who had seen you fall, and faltered back.

Sal.
Whom heard ye
Named next to the command?

Sol.
I did not hear.

Sal.
Fly, then, and tell him, 'twas my last request
That Zames take my post until the junction,
So hoped for, yet delayed, of Ofratanes,
Satrap of Susa. Leave me here: our troops
Are not so numerous as to spare your absence.

Sol.
But Prince—

Sal.
Hence, I say! Here 's a courtier and
A woman, the best chamber company.
As you would not permit me to expire
Upon the field, I'll have no idle soldiers
About my sick couch. Hence! and do my bidding!

[Exeunt the Soldiers.
Myr.
Gallant and glorious Spirit! must the earth
So soon resign thee?

Sal.
Gentle Myrrha, 'tis
The end I would have chosen, had I saved
The monarch or the monarchy by this;
As 'tis, I have not outlived them.

Myr.
You wax paler.

Sal.
Your hand; this broken weapon but prolongs
My pangs, without sustaining life enough
To make me useful: I would draw it forth
And my life with it, could I but hear how
The fight goes.

Enter Sardanapalus and Soldiers.
Sar.
My best brother!

Sal.
And the battle
Is lost?

Sar.
(despondingly).
You see me here.

Sal.
I'd rather see you thus!

[He draws out the weapon from the wound, and dies.
Sar.
And thus I will be seen; unless the succour,
The last frail reed of our beleagured hopes,
Arrive with Ofratanes.

Myr.
Did you not
Receive a token from your dying brother,
Appointing Zames chief?

Sar.
I did.

Myr.
Where's Zames?

Sar.
Dead.

Myr.
And Altada?

Sar.
Dying.

Myr.
Pania? Sfero?

Sar.
Pania yet lives; but Sfero's fled or captive.
I am alone.

Myr.
And is all lost?

Sar.
Our walls,
Though thinly manned, may still hold out against
Their present force, or aught save treachery:
But i' the field—

Myr.
I thought 'twas the intent
Of Salemenes not to risk a sally
Till ye were strengthened by the expected succours.

Sar.
I over-ruled him.

Myr.
Well, the fault's a brave one.

Sar.
But fatal. Oh, my brother! I would give
These realms, of which thou wert the ornament,
The sword and shield, the sole-redeeming honour,
To call back—But I will not weep for thee;
Thou shalt be mourned for as thou wouldst be mourned.
It grieves me most that thou couldst quit this life
Believing that I could survive what thou
Hast died for—our long royalty of race.
If I redeem it, I will give thee blood
Of thousands, tears of millions, for atonement,
(The tears of all the good are thine already).
If not, we meet again soon,—if the spirit
Within us lives beyond:—thou readest mine,
And dost me justice now. Let me once clasp
That yet warm hand, and fold that throbless heart
[Embraces the body.
To this which beats so bitterly. Now, bear
The body hence.

Sol.
Where?

Sar.
To my proper chamber.
Place it beneath my canopy, as though
The King lay there: when this is done, we will
Speak further of the rites due to such ashes.

[Exeunt Soldiers with the body of Salemenes.
Enter. Pania.
Sar.
Well, Pania! have you placed the guards, and issued
The orders fixed on?

Pan.
Sire, I have obeyed.

Sar.
And do the soldiers keep their hearts up?

Pan.
Sire?

Sar.
I am answered! When a king asks twice, and has
A question as an answer to his question,
It is a portent. What! they are disheartened?

Pan.
The death of Salemenes, and the shouts
Of the exulting rebels on his fall,
Have made them—

Sar.
Rage—not droop—it should have been.
We'll find the means to rouse them.

Pan.
Such a loss
Might sadden even a victory.

Sar.
Alas!
Who can so feel it as I feel? but yet,
Though cooped within these walls, they are strong, and we
Have those without will break their way through hosts,
To make their sovereign's dwelling what it was—
A palace, not a prison—nor a fortress.

Enter an Officer, hastily.
Sar.
Thy face seems ominous. Speak!

Offi.
I dare not.

Sar.
Dare not?
While millions dare revolt with sword in hand!
That's strange. I pray thee break that loyal silence
Which loathes to shock its sovereign; we can hear
Worse than thou hast to tell.

Pan.
Proceed—thou hearest.

Offi.
The wall which skirted near the river's brink
Is thrown down by the sudden inundation
Of the Euphrates, which now rolling, swoln
From the enormous mountains where it rises,
By the late rains of that tempestuous region,
O'erfloods its banks, and hath destroyed the bulwark.

Pan.
That's a black augury! it has been said
For ages, “That the City ne'er should yield
“To man, until the River grew its foe.”

Sar.
I can forgive the omen, not the ravage.
How much is swept down of the wall?

Offi.
About
Some twenty stadia.

Sar.
And all this is left
Pervious to the assailants?

Offi.
For the present
The River's fury must impede the assault;
But when he shrinks into his wonted channel,
And may be crossed by the accustomed barks,
The palace is their own.

Sar.
That shall be never.
Though men, and gods, and elements, and omens,
Have risen up 'gainst one who ne'er provoked them,
My father's house shall never be a cave
For wolves to horde and howl in.

Pan.
With your sanction,
I will proceed to the spot, and take such measures
For the assurance of the vacant space
As time and means permit.

Sar.
About it straight,
And bring me back, as speedily as full
And fair investigation may permit,
Report of the true state of this irruption
Of waters.

[Exeunt Pania and the Officer.
Myr.
Thus the very waves rise up
Against you.

Sar.
They are not my subjects, girl,
And may be pardoned, since they can't be punished.

Myr.
I joy to see this portent shakes you not.

Sar.
I am past the fear of portents: they can tell me
Nothing I have not told myself since midnight:
Despair anticipates such things.

Myr.
Despair!

Sar.
No; not despair precisely. When we know
All that can come, and how to meet it, our
Resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble
Word than this is to give it utterance.
But what are words to us? we have well nigh done
With them and all things.

Myr.
Save one deed—the last
And greatest to all mortals; crowning act
Of all that was, or is, or is to be—
The only thing common to all mankind,
So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures,
Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects,
Without one point of union save in this—
To which we tend, for which we're born, and thread
The labyrinth of mystery, called life.

Sar.
Our clue being well nigh wound out, let's be cheerful.
They who have nothing more to fear may well
Indulge a smile at that which once appalled;
As children at discovered bugbears.

Re-enter Pania.
Pan.
'Tis
As was reported: I have ordered there
A double guard, withdrawing from the wall,
Where it was strongest, the required addition
To watch the breach occasioned by the waters.

Sar.
You have done your duty faithfully, and as
My worthy Pania! further ties between us
Draw near a close—I pray you take this key:
[Gives a key.
It opens to a secret chamber, placed
Behind the couch in my own chamber—(Now
Pressed by a nobler weight than e'er it bore—
Though a long line of sovereigns have lain down
Along its golden frame—as bearing for
A time what late was Salemenes.)—Search
The secret covert to which this will lead you;
'Tis full of treasure; take it for yourself
And your companions: there's enough to load ye,
Though ye be many. Let the slaves be freed, too;
And all the inmates of the palace, of
Whatever sex, now quit it in an hour.
Thence launch the regal barks, once formed for pleasure,
And now to serve for safety, and embark.
The river's broad and swoln, and uncommanded,
(More potent than a king) by these besiegers.
Fly! and be happy!

Pan.
Under your protection!
So you accompany your faithful guard.

Sar.
No, Pania! that must not be; get thee hence,
And leave me to my fate.

Pan.
'Tis the first time
I ever disobeyed: but now—

Sar.
So all men
Dare beard me now, and Insolence within
Apes Treason from without. Question no further;
'Tis my command, my last command. Wilt thou
Oppose it? thou!

Pan.
But yet—not yet.

Sar.
Well, then,
Swear that you will obey when I shall give
The signal.

Pan.
With a heavy but true heart,
I promise.

Sar.
'Tis enough. Now order here
Faggots, pine-nuts, and withered leaves, and such
Things as catch fire and blaze with one sole spark;
Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices,
And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile;
Bring frankincense and myrrh, too, for it is
For a great sacrifice I build the pyre!
And heap them round yon throne.

Pan.
My Lord!

Sar.
I have said it,
And you have sworn.

Pan.
And could keep my faith
Without a vow.

[Exit Pania.
Myr.
What mean you?

Sar.
You shall know
Anon—what the whole earth shall ne'er forget.

Pania, returning with a Herald.
Pan.
My King, in going forth upon my duty,
This herald has been brought before me, craving
An audience.

Sar.
Let him speak.

Her.
The King Arbaces—

Sar.
What, crowned already?—But, proceed.

Her.
Beleses,
The anointed High-priest—

Sar.
Of what god or demon?
With new kings rise new altars. But, proceed;
You are sent to prate your master's will, and not
Reply to mine.

Her.
And Satrap Ofratanes—

Sar.
Why, he is ours.

Her.
(showing a ring).
Be sure that he is now
In the camp of the conquerors; behold
His signet ring.

Sar.
'Tis his. A worthy triad!
Poor Salemenes! thou hast died in time
To see one treachery the less: this man
Was thy true friend and my most trusted subject.
Proceed.

Her.
They offer thee thy life, and freedom
Of choice to single out a residence
In any of the further provinces,
Guarded and watched, but not confined in person,
Where thou shalt pass thy days in peace; but on
Condition that the three young princes are
Given up as hostages.

Sar.
(ironically).
The generous Victors!

Her.
I wait the answer.

Sar.
Answer, slave! How long
Have slaves decided on the doom of kings?

Her.
Since they were free.

Sar.
Mouthpiece of mutiny!
Thou at the least shalt learn the penalty
Of treason, though its proxy only. Pania!
Let his head be thrown from our walls within
The rebels' lines, his carcass down the river.
Away with him!

[Pania and the Guards seizing him.
Pan.
I never yet obeyed
Your orders with more pleasure than the present.
Hence with him, soldiers! do not soil this hall
Of royalty with treasonable gore;
Put him to rest without.

Her.
A single word:
My office, King, is sacred.

Sar.
And what's mine?
That thou shouldst come and dare to ask of me
To lay it down?

Her.
I but obeyed my orders,
At the same peril if refused, as now
Incurred by my obedience.

Sar.
So there are
New monarchs of an hour's growth as despotic
As sovereigns swathed in purple, and enthroned
From birth to manhood!

Her.
My life waits your breath.
Yours (I speak humbly)—but it may be—yours
May also be in danger scarce less imminent:
Would it then suit the last hours of a line
Such as is that of Nimrod, to destroy
A peaceful herald, unarmed, in his office;
And violate not only all that man
Holds sacred between man and man—but that
More holy tie which links us with the Gods?

Sar.
He's right.—Let him go free.—My life's last act
Shall not be one of wrath. Here, fellow, take
[Gives him a golden cup from a table near.
This golden goblet, let it hold your wine,
And think of me; or melt it into ingots,
And think of nothing but their weight and value.

Her.
I thank you doubly for my life, and this
Most gorgeous gift, which renders it more precious.
But must I bear no answer?

Sar.
Yes,—I ask
An hour's truce to consider.

Her.
But an hour's?

Sar.
An hour's: if at the expiration of
That time your masters hear no further from me,
They are to deem that I reject their terms,
And act befittingly.

Her.
I shall not fail
To be a faithful legate of your pleasure.

Sar.
And hark! a word more.

Her.
I shall not forget it,
Whate'er it be.

Sar.
Commend me to Beleses;
And tell him, ere a year expire, I summon
Him hence to meet me.

Her.
Where?

Sar.
At Babylon.
At least from thence he will depart to meet me.

Her.
I shall obey you to the letter.

[Exit Herald.
Sar.
Pania!—
Now, my good Pania!—quick—with what I ordered.

Pan.
My Lord,—the soldiers are already charged.
And see! they enter.

Soldiers enter, and form a Pile about the Throne, etc.
Sar.
Higher, my good soldiers,
And thicker yet; and see that the foundation
Be such as will not speedily exhaust
Its own too subtle flame; nor yet be quenched
With aught officious aid would bring to quell it.
Let the throne form the core of it; I would not
Leave that, save fraught with fire unquenchable,
To the new comers. Frame the whole as if
'Twere to enkindle the strong tower of our
Inveterate enemies. Now it bears an aspect!
How say you, Pania, will this pile suffice
For a King's obsequies?

Pan.
Aye, for a kingdom's.
I understand you, now.

Sar.
And blame me?

Pan.
No—
Let me but fire the pile, and share it with you.

Myr.
That duty's mine.

Pan.
A woman's!

Myr.
'Tis the soldier's
Part to die for his sovereign, and why not
The woman's with her lover?

Pan.
'Tis most strange!

Myr.
But not so rare, my Pania, as thou think'st it.
In the mean time, live thou.—Farewell! the pile
Is ready.

Pan.
I should shame to leave my sovereign
With but a single female to partake
His death.

Sar.
Too many far have heralded
Me to the dust already. Get thee hence;
Enrich thee.

Pan.
And live wretched!

Sar.
Think upon
Thy vow:—'tis sacred and irrevocable.

Pan.
Since it is so, farewell.

Sar.
Search well my chamber,
Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold;
Remember, what you leave you leave the slaves
Who slew me: and when you have borne away
All safe off to your boats, blow one long blast
Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace.
The river's brink is too remote, its stream
Too loud at present to permit the echo
To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,—
And as you sail, turn back; but still keep on
Your way along the Euphrates: if you reach
The land of Paphlagonia, where the Queen
Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's court,
Say what you saw at parting, and request
That she remember what I said at one
Parting more mournful still.

Pan.
That royal hand!
Let me then once more press it to my lips;
And these poor soldiers who throng round you, and
Would fain die with you!

[The Soldiers and Pania throng round him, kissing his hand and the hem of his robe.
Sar.
My best! my last friends!
Let's not unman each other: part at once:
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.
Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am not
Now to be pitied; or far more for what
Is past than present;—for the future, 'tis
In the hands of the deities, if such
There be: I shall know soon. Farewell—Farewell.

[Exeunt Pania and Soldiers.
Myr.
These men were honest: it is comfort still
That our last looks should be on loving faces.

Sar.
And lovely ones, my beautiful!—but hear me!
If at this moment,—for we now are on
The brink,—thou feel'st an inward shrinking from
This leap through flame into the future, say it:
I shall not love thee less; nay, perhaps more,
For yielding to thy nature: and there's time
Yet for thee to escape hence.

Myr.
Shall I light
One of the torches which lie heaped beneath
The ever-burning lamp that burns without,
Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall?

Sar.
Do so. Is that thy answer?

Myr.
Thou shalt see.

[Exit Myrrha.
Sar.
(solus).
She's firm. My fathers! whom I will rejoin,
It may be, purified by death from some
Of the gross stains of too material being,
I would not leave your ancient first abode
To the defilement of usurping bondmen;
If I have not kept your inheritance
As ye bequeathed it, this bright part of it,
Your treasure—your abode—your sacred relics
Of arms, and records—monuments, and spoils,
In which they would have revelled, I bear with me
To you in that absorbing element,
Which most personifies the soul as leaving
The least of matter unconsumed before
Its fiery workings:—and the light of this
Most royal of funereal pyres shall be
Not a mere pillar formed of cloud and flame,
A beacon in the horizon for a day,
And then a mount of ashes—but a light
To lesson ages, rebel nations, and
Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many
A people's records, and a hero's acts;
Sweep empire after empire, like this first
Of empires, into nothing; but even then
Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up
A problem few dare imitate, and none
Despise—but, it may be, avoid the life
Which led to such a consummation.

Myrrha returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand, and a Cup in the other.
Myr.
Lo!
I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars.

Sar.
And the cup?

Myr.
'Tis my country's custom to
Make a libation to the Gods.

Sar.
[Sardanapalus takes the cup, and after drinking and tinkling the reversed cup, as a drop falls, exclaims—

Myr.
Why
Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's name
Than on his mate's in villany?

Sar.
The other
Is a mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind
Of human sword in a friend's hand; the other
Is master-mover of his warlike puppet;
But I dismiss them from my mind.—Yet pause,
My Myrrha! dost thou truly follow me,
Freely and fearlessly?

Myr.
And dost thou think
A Greek girl dare not do for love, that which
An Indian widow braves for custom?

Sar.
Then
We but await the signal.

Myr.
It is long
In sounding.

Sar.
Now, farewell; one last embrace.

Myr.
Embrace, but not the last; there is one more.

Sar.
True, the commingling fire will mix our ashes.

Myr.
And pure as is my love to thee, shall they,
Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion,
Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.

Sar.
Say it.

Myr.
It is that no kind hand will gather
The dust of both into one urn.

Sar.
The better:
Rather let them be borne abroad upon
The winds of heaven, and scattered into air,
Than be polluted more by human hands
Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace,
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin,
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt
Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er dead kings,
Or kine—for none know whether those proud piles
Be for their monarch, or their ox-god Apis:
So much for monuments that have forgotten
Their very record!

Myr.
Then farewell, thou earth!
And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia!
Be thou still free and beautiful, and far
Aloof from desolation! My last prayer
Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee!

Sar.
And that?

Myr.
Is yours.

[The trumpet of Pania sounds without.
Sar.
Hark!

Myr.
Now!

Sar.
[He mounts the pile.

Myr.
Art thou ready?

Sar.
As the torch in thy grasp.

[Myrrha fires the pile.
Myr.
'Tis fired! I come.

[As Myrrha springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls.

THE TWO FOSCARI:

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

• Francis Foscari, Doge of Venice.
• Jacopo Foscari, Son of the Doge.
• James Loredano, a Patrician.
• Marco Memmo, a Chief of the Forty.
• Barbarigo, a Senator.
• Other Senators, The Council of Ten, Guards, Attendants, etc., etc.

WOMAN.

• Marina, Wife of young Foscari.

Scene—The Ducal Palace, Venice.

ACT I.

Scene I.

—A Hall in the Ducal Palace.
Enter Loredano and Barbarigo, meeting.
Lor.
Where is the prisoner?

Bar.
Reposing from
The Question.

Lor.
The hour's past—fixed yesterday
For the resumption of his trial.—Let us
Rejoin our colleagues in the council, and
Urge his recall.

Bar.
Nay, let him profit by
A few brief minutes for his tortured limbs;
He was o'erwrought by the Question yesterday,
And may die under it if now repeated.

Lor.
Well?

Bar.
I yield not to you in love of justice,
Or hate of the ambitious Foscari,
Father and son, and all their noxious race;
But the poor wretch has suffered beyond Nature's
Most stoical endurance.

Lor.
Without owning
His crime?

Bar.
Perhaps without committing any.
But he avowed the letter to the Duke
Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone for
Such weakness.

Lor.
We shall see.

Bar.
You, Loredano,
Pursue hereditary hate too far.

Lor.
How far?

Bar.
To extermination.

Lor.
When they are
Extinct, you may say this.—Let's in to council.

Bar.
Yet pause—the number of our colleagues is not
Complete yet; two are wanting ere we can
Proceed.

Lor.
And the chief judge, the Doge?

Bar.
No—he,
With more than Roman fortitude, is ever
First at the board in this unhappy process
Against his last and only son.

Lor.
True—true—
His last.

Bar.
Will nothing move you?

Lor.
Feels he, think you?

Bar.
He shows it not.

Lor.
I have marked that—the wretch!

Bar.
But yesterday, I hear, on his return
To the ducal chambers, as he passed the threshold
The old man fainted.

Lor.
It begins to work, then.

Bar.
The work is half your own.

Lor.
And should be all mine—
My father and my uncle are no more.

Bar.
I have read their epitaph, which says they died
By poison.

Lor.
When the Doge declared that he
Should never deem himself a sovereign till
The death of Peter Loredano, both
The brothers sickened shortly:—he is Sovereign.

Bar.
A wretched one.

Lor.
What should they be who make
Orphans?

Bar.
But did the Doge make you so?

Lor.
Yes.

Bar.
What solid proofs?

Lor.
When Princes set themselves
To work in secret, proofs and process are
Alike made difficult; but I have such
Of the first, as shall make the second needless.

Bar.
But you will move by law?

Lor.
By all the laws
Which he would leave us.

Bar.
They are such in this
Our state as render retribution easier
Than 'mongst remoter nations. Is it true
That you have written in your books of commerce,
(The wealthy practice of our highest nobles)
“Doge Foscari, my debtor for the deaths
Of Marco and Pietro Loredano,
My sire and uncle?”

Lor.
It is written thus.

Bar.
And will you leave it unerased?

Lor.
Till balanced.

Bar.
And how?

[Two Senators pass over the stage, as in their way to “the Hall of the Council of Ten.”
Lor.
You see the number is complete.
Follow me.

[Exit Loredano.
Bar.
(solus).
Follow thee! I have followed long
Thy path of desolation, as the wave
Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming
The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch
Who shrieks within its riven ribs, as gush
The waters through them; but this son and sire
Might move the elements to pause, and yet
Must I on hardily like them—Oh! would
I could as blindly and remorselessly!—
Lo, where he comes!—Be still, my heart! they are
Thy foes, must be thy victims: wilt thou beat
For those who almost broke thee?

Enter Guards, with young Foscari as Prisoner, etc.
Guard.
Let him rest.
Signor, take time.

Jac. Fos.
I thank thee, friend, I'm feeble;
But thou mayst stand reproved.

Guard.
I'll stand the hazard.

Jac. Fos.
That's kind:—I meet some pity, but no mercy;
This is the first.

Guard.
And might be the last, did they
Who rule behold us.

Bar.
(advancing to the Guard).
There is one who does:
Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge
Nor thy accuser; though the hour is past,
Wait their last summons—I am of “the Ten,”
And waiting for that summons, sanction you
Even by my presence: when the last call sounds,
We'll in together.—Look well to the prisoner!

Jac. Fos.
What voice is that?—'Tis Barbarigo's! Ah!
Our House's foe, and one of my few judges.

Bar.
To balance such a foe, if such there be,
Thy father sits amongst thy judges.

Jac. Fos.
True,
He judges.

Bar.
Then deem not the laws too harsh
Which yield so much indulgence to a sire,
As to allow his voice in such high matter
As the state's safety—

Jac. Fos.
And his son's. I'm faint;
Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath
Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the waters.

Enter an Officer, who whispers Barbarigo.
Bar.
(to the Guard).
Let him approach. I must not speak with him
Further than thus: I have transgressed my duty
In this brief parley, and must now redeem it
Within the Council Chamber.

[Exit Barbarigo.
[Guard conducting Jacopo Foscari to the window.
Guard.
There, sir, 'tis
Open.—How feel you?

Jac. Fos.
Like a boy—Oh Venice!

Guard.
And your limbs?

Jac. Fos.
Limbs! how often have they borne me
Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimmed
The gondola along in childish race,
And, masqued as a young gondolier, amidst
My gay competitors, noble as I,
Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength;
While the fair populace of crowding beauties,
Plebeian as patrician, cheered us on
With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible,
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands,
Even to the goal!—How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughened; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen
By those above, till they waxed fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As showed that I had searched the deep: exulting,
With a far-dashing stroke, and, drawing deep
The long-suspended breath, again I spurned
The foam which broke around me, and pursued
My track like a sea-bird.—I was a boy then.

Guard.
Be a man now: there never was more need
Of manhood's strength.

Jac. Fos.
(looking from the lattice).
My beautiful, my own,
My only Venice—this is breath! Thy breeze,
Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face!
Thy very winds feel native to my veins,
And cool them into calmness! How unlike
The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades,
Which howled about my Candiote dungeon, and
Made my heart sick.

Guard.
I see the colour comes
Back to your cheek: Heaven send you strength to bear
What more may be imposed!—I dread to think on't.

Jac. Fos.
They will not banish me again?—No—no,
Let them wring on; I am strong yet.

Guard.
Confess,
And the rack will be spared you.

Jac. Fos.
I confessed
Once—twice before: both times they exiled me.

Guard.
And the third time will slay you.

Jac. Fos.
Let them do so,
So I be buried in my birth-place: better
Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere.

Guard.
And can you so much love the soil which hates you?

Jac. Fos.
The soil!—Oh no, it is the seed of the soil
Which persecutes me: but my native earth
Will take me as a mother to her arms.
I ask no more than a Venetian grave,
A dungeon, what they will, so it be here.

Enter an Officer.
Offi.
Bring in the prisoner!

Guard.
Signor, you hear the order.

Jac. Fos.
Aye, I am used to such a summons; 'tis
The third time they have tortured me:—then lend me
Thine arm.

[To the Guard.
Offi.
Take mine, sir; 'tis my duty to
Be nearest to your person.

Jac. Fos.
You!—you are he
Who yesterday presided o'er my pangs—
Away!—I'll walk alone.

Offi.
As you please, Signor;
The sentence was not of my signing, but
I dared not disobey the Council when
They—

Jac. Fos.
Bade thee stretch me on their horrid engine.
I pray thee touch me not—that is, just now;
The time will come they will renew that order,
But keep off from me till 'tis issued. As
I look upon thy hands my curdling limbs
Quiver with the anticipated wrenching,
And the cold drops strain through my brow, as if—
But onward—I have borne it—I can bear it.—
How looks my father?

Offi.
With his wonted aspect.

Jac. Fos.
So does the earth, and sky, the blue of Ocean,
The brightness of our city, and her domes,
The mirth of her Piazza—even now
Its merry hum of nations pierces here,
Even here, into these chambers of the unknown
Who govern, and the unknown and the unnumbered
Judged and destroyed in silence,—all things wear
The self-same aspect, to my very sire!
Nothing can sympathise with Foscari,
Not even a Foscari.—Sir, I attend you.

[Exeunt Jacopo Foscari, Officer, etc.
Enter Memmo and another Senator.
Mem.
He's gone—we are too late:—think you “the Ten”
Will sit for any length of time to-day?

Sen.
They say the prisoner is most obdurate,
Persisting in his first avowal; but
More I know not.

Mem.
And that is much; the secrets
Of yon terrific chamber are as hidden
From us, the premier nobles of the state,
As from the people.

Sen.
Save the wonted rumours,
Which—like the tales of spectres, that are rife
Near ruined buildings—never have been proved,
Nor wholly disbelieved: men know as little
Of the state's real acts as of the grave's
Unfathomed mysteries.

Mem.
But with length of time
We gain a step in knowledge, and I look
Forward to be one day of the decemvirs.

Sen.
Or Doge?

Mem.
Why, no; not if I can avoid it.

Sen.
'Tis the first station of the state, and may
Be lawfully desired, and lawfully
Attained by noble aspirants.

Mem.
To such
I leave it; though born noble, my ambition
Is limited: I'd rather be an unit
Of an united and Imperial “Ten,”
Than shine a lonely, though a gilded cipher.—
Whom have we here? the wife of Foscari?

Enter Marina, with a female Attendant.
Mar.
What, no one?—I am wrong, there still are two;
But they are senators.

Mem.
Most noble lady,
Command us.

Mar.
I command!—Alas! my life
Has been one long entreaty, and a vain one.

Mem.
I understand thee, but I must not answer.

Mar.
(fiercely).
True—none dare answer here save on the rack,
Or question save those—

Mem.
(interrupting her).
High-born dame! bethink thee
Where thou now art.

Mar.
Where I now am!—It was
My husband's father's palace.

Mem.
The Duke's palace.

Mar.
And his son's prison!—True, I have not forgot it;
And, if there were no other nearer, bitterer
Remembrances, would thank the illustrious Memmo
For pointing out the pleasures of the place.

Mem.
Be calm!

Mar.
(looking up towards heaven).
I am; but oh, thou eternal God!
Canst thou continue so, with such a world?

Mem.
Thy husband yet may be absolved.

Mar.
He is,
In Heaven. I pray you, Signor Senator,
Speak not of that; you are a man of office,
So is the Doge; he has a son at stake
Now, at this moment, and I have a husband,
Or had; they are there within, or were at least
An hour since, face to face, as judge and culprit:
Will he condemn him?

Mem.
I trust not.

Mar.
But if
He does not, there are those will sentence both.

Mem.
They can.

Mar.
And with them power and will are one
In wickedness;—my husband's lost!

Mem.
Not so;
Justice is judge in Venice.

Mar.
If it were so,
There now would be no Venice. But let it
Live on, so the good die not, till the hour
Of Nature's summons; but “the Ten's” is quicker,
And we must wait on't. Ah! a voice of wail!

[A faint cry within.
Sen.
Hark!

Mem.
'Twas a cry of—

Mar.
No, no; not my husband's—
Not Foscari's.

Mem.
The voice was—

Mar.
Not his: no.
He shriek! No; that should be his father's part,
Not his—not his—he'll die in silence.

[A faint groan again within.
Mem.
What!
Again?

Mar.
His voice! it seemed so: I will not
Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot cease
To love; but—no—no—no—it must have been
A fearful pang, which wrung a groan from him.

Sen.
And, feeling for thy husband's wrongs, wouldst thou
Have him bear more than mortal pain in silence?

Mar.
We all must bear our tortures. I have not
Left barren the great house of Foscari,
Though they sweep both the Doge and son from life;
I have endured as much in giving life
To those who will succeed them, as they can
In leaving it: but mine were joyful pangs:
And yet they wrung me till I could have shrieked,
But did not; for my hope was to bring forth
Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears.

Mem.
All's silent now.

Mar.
Perhaps all's over; but
I will not deem it: he hath nerved himself,
And now defies them.

Enter an Officer hastily.
Mem.
How now, friend, what seek you?

Offi.
A leech. The prisoner has fainted.

[Exit Officer.
Mem.
Lady,
'Twere better to retire.

Sen.
(offering to assist her).
I pray thee do so.

Mar.
Off! I will tend him.

Mem.
You! Remember, lady!
Ingress is given to none within those chambers
Except “the Ten,” and their familiars.

Mar.
Well,
I know that none who enter there return
As they have entered—many never; but
They shall not balk my entrance.

Mem.
Alas! this
Is but to expose yourself to harsh repulse,
And worse suspense.

Mar.
Who shall oppose me?

Mem.
They
Whose duty 'tis to do so.

Mar.
'Tis their duty
To trample on all human feelings, all
Ties which bind man to man, to emulate
The fiends who will one day requite them in
Variety of torturing! Yet I'll pass.

Mem.
It is impossible.

Mar.
That shall be tried.
Despair defies even despotism: there is
That in my heart would make its way through hosts
With levelled spears; and think you a few jailors
Shall put me from my path? Give me, then, way;
This is the Doge's palace; I am wife
Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's son,
And they shall hear this!

Mem.
It will only serve
More to exasperate his judges.

Mar.
What
Are judges who give way to anger? they
Who do so are assassins. Give me way.

[Exit Marina.
Sen.
Poor lady!

Mem.
'Tis mere desperation: she
Will not be admitted o'er the threshold.

Sen.
And
Even if she be so, cannot save her husband.
But, see, the officer returns.

[The Officer passes over the stage with another person.
Mem.
I hardly
Thought that “the Ten” had even this touch of pity,
Or would permit assistance to this sufferer.

Sen.
Pity! Is't pity to recall to feeling
The wretch too happy to escape to Death
By the compassionate trance, poor Nature's last
Resource against the tyranny of pain?

Mem.
I marvel they condemn him not at once.

Sen.
That's not their policy: they'd have him live,
Because he fears not death; and banish him,
Because all earth, except his native land,
To him is one wide prison, and each breath
Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison,
Consuming but not killing.

Mem.
Circumstance
Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not.

Sen.
None, save the Letter, which, he says, was written
Addressed to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge
That it would fall into the Senate's hands,
And thus he should be re-conveyed to Venice.

Mem.
But as a culprit.

Sen.
Yes, but to his country;
And that was all he sought,—so he avouches.

Mem.
The accusation of the bribes was proved.

Sen.
Not clearly, and the charge of homicide
Has been annulled by the death-bed confession
Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slew the late
Chief of “the Ten.”

Mem.
Then why not clear him?

Sen.
That
They ought to answer; for it is well known
That Almoro Donato, as I said,
Was slain by Erizzo for private vengeance.

Mem.
There must be more in this strange process than
The apparent crimes of the accused disclose—
But here come two of “the Ten;” let us retire.

[Exeunt Memmo and Senator.
Enter Loredano and Barbarigo.
Bar.
(addressing Lor.).
That were too much: believe me, 'twas not meet
The trial should go further at this moment.

Lor.
And so the Council must break up, and Justice
Pause in her full career, because a woman
Breaks in on our deliberations?

Bar.
No,
That 's not the cause; you saw the prisoner's state.

Lor.
And had he not recovered?

Bar.
To relapse
Upon the least renewal.

Lor.
'Twas not tried.

Bar.
'Tis vain to murmur; the majority
In council were against you.

Lor.
Thanks to you, sir,
And the old ducal dotard, who combined
The worthy voices which o'er-ruled my own.

Bar.
I am a judge; but must confess that part
Of our stern duty, which prescribes the Question,
And bids us sit and see its sharp infliction,
Makes me wish—

Lor.
What?

Bar.
That you would sometimes feel,
As I do always.

Lor.
Go to, you're a child,
Infirm of feeling as of purpose, blown
About by every breath, shook by a sigh,
And melted by a tear—a precious judge
For Venice! and a worthy statesman to
Be partner in my policy.

Bar.
He shed
No tears.

Lor.
He cried out twice.

Bar.
A Saint had done so,
Even with the crown of Glory in his eye,
At such inhuman artifice of pain
As was forced on him; but he did not cry
For pity; not a word nor groan escaped him,
And those two shrieks were not in supplication,
But wrung from pangs, and followed by no prayers.

Lor.
He muttered many times between his teeth,
But inarticulately.

Bar.
That I heard not:
You stood more near him.

Lor.
I did so.

Bar.
Methought,
To my surprise too, you were touched with mercy,
And were the first to call out for assistance
When he was failing.

Lor.
I believed that swoon
His last.

Bar.
And have I not oft heard thee name
His and his father's death your nearest wish?

Lor.
If he dies innocent, that is to say,
With his guilt unavowed, he'll be lamented.

Bar.
What, wouldst thou slay his memory?

Lor.
Wouldst thou have
His state descend to his children, as it must,
If he die unattainted?

Bar.
War with them too?

Lor.
With all their house, till theirs or mine are nothing.

Bar.
And the deep agony of his pale wife,
And the repressed convulsion of the high
And princely brow of his old father, which
Broke forth in a slight shuddering, though rarely,
Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped away
In stern serenity; these moved you not?
[Exit Loredano.
He's silent in his hate, as Foscari
Was in his suffering; and the poor wretch moved me
More by his silence than a thousand outcries
Could have effected. 'Twas a dreadful sight
When his distracted wife broke through into
The hall of our tribunal, and beheld
What we could scarcely look upon, long used
To such sights. I must think no more of this,
Lest I forget in this compassion for
Our foes, their former injuries, and lose
The hold of vengeance Loredano plans
For him and me; but mine would be content
With lesser retribution than he thirsts for,
And I would mitigate his deeper hatred
To milder thoughts; but, for the present, Foscari
Has a short hourly respite, granted at
The instance of the elders of the Council,
Moved doubtless by his wife's appearance in
The hall, and his own sufferings.—Lo! they come:
How feeble and forlorn! I cannot bear
To look on them again in this extremity:
I'll hence, and try to soften Loredano.

[Exit Barbarigo.

ACT II.

Scene I.

—A hall in the Doge's Palace.
The Doge and a Senator.
Sen.
Is it your pleasure to sign the report
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow?

Doge.
Now;
I overlooked it yesterday: it wants
Merely the signature. Give me the pen—
[The Doge sits down and signs the paper.
There, Signor.

Sen.
(looking at the paper).
You have forgot; it is not signed.

Doge.
Not signed? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin
To wax more weak with age. I did not see
That I had dipped the pen without effect.

Sen.
(dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the paper before the Doge).
Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord: allow me, thus—

Doge.
'Tis done, I thank you.

Sen.
Thus the act confirmed
By you and by “the Ten” gives peace to Venice.

Doge.
'Tis long since she enjoyed it: may it be
As long ere she resume her arms!

Sen.
'Tis almost
Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy;
The state had need of some repose.

Doge.
No doubt:
I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her
Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort
That I have added to her diadem
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; Crema
And Bergamo no less are hers; her realm
By land has grown by thus much in my reign,
While her sea-sway has not shrunk.

Sen.
'Tis most true,
And merits all our country's gratitude.

Doge.
Perhaps so.

Sen.
Which should be made manifest.

Doge.
I have not complained, sir.

Sen.
My good Lord, forgive me.

Doge.
For what?

Sen.
My heart bleeds for you.

Doge.
For me, Signor?

Sen.
And for your—

Doge.
Stop!

Sen.
It must have way, my Lord:
I have too many duties towards you
And all your house, for past and present kindness,
Not to feel deeply for your son.

Doge.
Was this
In your commission?

Sen.
What, my Lord?

Doge.
This prattle
Of things you know not: but the treaty's signed;
Return with it to them who sent you.

Sen.
I
Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council,
That you would fix an hour for their reunion.

Doge.
Say, when they will—now, even at this moment,
If it so please them: I am the State's servant.

Sen.
They would accord some time for your repose.

Doge.
I have no repose, that is, none which shall cause
The loss of an hour's time unto the State.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.

[Exit Senator. The Doge remains in silence.
Enter an Attendant.
Att.
Prince!

Doge.
Say on.

Att.
The illustrious lady Foscari
Requests an audience.

Doge.
Bid her enter. Poor
Marina!

[Exit Attendant. The Doge remains in silence as before.
Enter Marina.
Mar.
I have ventured, father, on
Your privacy.

Doge.
I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The State.

Mar.
I wished to speak to you of him.

Doge.
Your husband?

Mar.
And your son.

Doge.
Proceed, my daughter!

Mar.
I had obtained permission from “the Ten”
To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.

Doge.
You had so.

Mar.
'Tis revoked.

Doge.
By whom?

Mar.
“The Ten.”—When we had reached “the Bridge of Sighs,”
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurred: a messenger was sent back to
“The Ten;”—but as the Court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that
Until that high tribunal reassembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.

Doge.
True,
The form has been omitted in the haste
With which the court adjourned; and till it meets,
'Tis dubious.

Mar.
Till it meets! and when it meets,
They'll torture him again; and he and I
Must purchase by renewal of the rack
The interview of husband and of wife,
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens!—Oh God!
Dost thou see this?

Doge.
Child—child—

Mar.
(abruptly).
Call me not “child!”
You soon will have no children—you deserve none—
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son
In circumstances which would call forth tears
Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep
Their boys who died in battle, is it written
That they beheld them perish piecemeal; nor
Stretched forth a hand to save them?

Doge.
You behold me:
I cannot weep—I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth,
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them—I'd give all
For him.

Mar.
With less he surely might be saved.

Doge.
That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me—they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,
And that is—but they have not conquered yet.

Mar.
But they have crushed.

Doge.
Nor crushed as yet—I live.

Mar.
And your son,—how long will he live?

Doge.
I trust,
For all that yet is past, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruined all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes—he has quenched them—
He must return.

Mar.
To exile?

Doge.
I have said it.

Mar.
And can I not go with him?

Doge.
You well know
This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled “Ten,” and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your Lord renders them still more austere.

Mar.
Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguished
In their accursèd bosoms.

Doge.
You know not—

Mar.
I do—I do—and so should you, methinks—
That these are demons: could it be else that
Men, who have been of women born and suckled—
Who have loved, or talked at least of Love—have given
Their hands in sacred vows—have danced their babes
Upon their knees, perhaps have mourned above them—
In pain, in peril, or in death—who are,
Or were, at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself—
You, who abet them?

Doge.
I forgive this, for
You know not what you say.

Mar.
You know it well,
And feel it nothing.

Doge.
I have borne so much,
That words have ceased to shake me.

Mar.
Oh, no doubt!
You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh shook not;
And after that, what are a woman's words?
No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.

Doge.
Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,
Is no more in the balance weighed with that
Which—but I pity thee, my poor Marina!

Mar.
Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity!—'tis a word
Strange to thy heart—how came it on thy lips?

Doge.
I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read—

Mar.
'Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,—where then
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?

Doge
(pointing downwards).
There.

Mar.
In the earth?

Doge.
To which I am tending: when
It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it
Now, you will know me better.

Mar.
Are you, then,
Indeed, thus to be pitied?

Doge.
Pitied! None
Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as I have borne it, what it was
When I received it.

Mar.
But for the poor children
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.

Doge.
Would it were so!
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me.—I have seen our house dishonoured.

Mar.
That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppressed but not disgraced, crushed, overwhelmed,
Alive, or dead, for Prince or Paladin
In story or in fable, with a world
To back his suit. Dishonoured!—he dishonoured!
I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonoured;
His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach,
For what he suffers, not for what he did.
'Tis ye who are all traitors, Tyrant!—ye!
Did you but love your Country like this victim
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore
His grace for your enormous guilt.

Doge.
He was
Indeed all you have said. I better bore
The deaths of the two sons Heaven took from me,
Than Jacopo's disgrace.

Mar.
That word again?

Doge.
Has he not been condemned?

Mar.
Is none but guilt so?

Doge.
Time may restore his memory—I would hope so.
He was my pride, my—but 'tis useless now—
I am not given to tears, but wept for joy
When he was born: those drops were ominous.

Mar.
I say he's innocent! And were he not so,
Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us
In fatal moments?

Doge.
I shrank not from him:
But I have other duties than a father's;
The state would not dispense me from those duties;
Twice I demanded it, but was refused:
They must then be fulfilled.

Enter an Attendant.
Att.
A message from
“The Ten.”

Doge.
Who bears it?

Att.
Noble Loredano.

Doge.
He!—but admit him.

[Exit Attendant.
Mar.
Must I then retire?

Doge.
Perhaps it is not requisite, if this
Concerns your husband, and if not—Well, Signor,
[To Loredano entering.
Your pleasure?

Lor.
I bear that of “the Ten.”

Doge.
They
Have chosen well their envoy.

Lor.
'Tis their choice
Which leads me here.

Doge.
It does their wisdom honour,
And no less to their courtesy.—Proceed.

Lor.
We have decided.

Doge.
We?

Lor.
“The Ten” in council.

Doge,
What! have they met again, and met without
Apprising me?

Lor.
They wished to spare your feelings,
No less than age.

Doge.
That's new—when spared they either?
I thank them, notwithstanding.

Lor.
You know well
That they have power to act at their discretion,
With or without the presence of the Doge.

Doge.
'Tis some years since I learned this, long before
I became Doge, or dreamed of such advancement.
You need not school me, Signor; I sate in
That Council when you were a young patrician.

Lor.
True, in my father's time; I have heard him and
The Admiral, his brother, say as much.
Your Highness may remember them; they both
Died suddenly.

Doge.
And if they did so, better
So die than live on lingeringly in pain.

Lor.
No doubt: yet most men like to live their days out.

Doge.
And did not they?

Lor.
The Grave knows best: they died,
As I said, suddenly.

Doge.
Is that so strange,
That you repeat the word emphatically?

Lor.
So far from strange, that never was there death
In my mind half so natural as theirs.
Think you not so?

Doge.
What should I think of mortals?

Lor.
That they have mortal foes.

Doge.
I understand you;
Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things.

Lor.
You best know if I should be so.

Doge.
I do.
Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard
Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less
A fable.

Lor.
Who dares say so?

Doge.
I!—'Tis true
Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter
As their son e'er can be, and I no less
Was theirs; but I was openly their foe:
I never worked by plot in Council, nor
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means
Of practice against life by steel or drug.
The proof is—your existence.

Lor.
I fear not.

Doge.
You have no cause, being what I am; but were I
That you would have me thought, you long ere now
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.

Lor.
I never yet knew that a noble's life
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown,
That is, by open means.

Doge.
But I, good Signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;
Not for the laws alone, for those you have strained
(I do not speak of you but as a single
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce for my authority,
Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,
I have observed with veneration, like
A priest's for the High Altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the State.
And now, sir, to your business.

Lor.
'Tis decreed,
That, without further repetition of
The Question, or continuance of the trial,
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is,
(“The Ten,” dispensing with the stricter law
Which still prescribes the Question till a full
Confession, and the prisoner partly having
Avowed his crime in not denying that
The letter to the Duke of Milan 's his),
James Foscari return to banishment,
And sail in the same galley which conveyed him.

Mar.
Thank God! At least they will not drag him more
Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could
Desire, were to escape from such a land.

Doge.
That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter.

Mar.
No, 'twas too human. May I share his exile?

Lor.
Of this “the Ten” said nothing.

Mar.
So I thought!
That were too human, also. But it was not
Inhibited?

Lor.
It was not named.

Mar.
(to the Doge).
Then, father,
Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much:
[To Loredano.
And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be
Permitted to accompany my husband.

Doge.
I will endeavour.

Mar.
And you, Signor?

Lor.
Lady!
'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure
Of the tribunal.

Mar.
Pleasure! what a word
To use for the decrees of—

Doge.
Daughter, know you
In what a presence you pronounce these things?

Mar.
A Prince's and his subject's.

Lor.
Subject!

Mar.
Oh!
It galls you:—well, you are his equal, as
You think; but that you are not, nor would be,
Were he a peasant:—well, then, you're a Prince,
A princely noble; and what then am I?

Lor.
The offspring of a noble house.

Mar.
And wedded
To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is
The presence that should silence my free thoughts?

Lor.
The presence of your husband's Judges.

Doge.
And
The deference due even to the lightest word
That falls from those who rule in Venice.

Mar.
Keep
Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics,
Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves,
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens,
And masked nobility, your sbirri, and
Your spies, your galley and your other slaves,
To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings,
Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under
The water's level; your mysterious meetings,
And unknown dooms, and sudden executions,
Your “Bridge of Sighs,” your strangling chamber, and
Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem
The beings of another and worse world!
Keep such for them: I fear ye not. I know ye;
Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal
Process of my poor husband! Treat me as
Ye treated him:—you did so, in so dealing
With him. Then what have I to fear from you,
Even if I were of fearful nature, which
I trust I am not?

Doge.
You hear, she speaks wildly.

Mar.
Not wisely, yet not wildly.

Lor.
Lady! words
Uttered within these walls I bear no further
Than to the threshold, saving such as pass
Between the Duke and me on the State's service.
Doge! have you aught in answer?

Doge.
Something from
The Doge; it may be also from a parent.

Lor.
My mission here is to the Doge.

Doge.
Then say
The Doge will choose his own ambassador,
Or state in person what is meet; and for
The father—

Lor.
I remember mine.—Farewell!
I kiss the hands of the illustrious Lady,
And bow me to the Duke.

[Exit Loredano.
Mar.
Are you content?

Doge.
I am what you behold.

Mar.
And that's a mystery.

Doge.
All things are so to mortals; who can read them
Save he who made? or, if they can, the few
And gifted spirits, who have studied long
That loathsome volume—man, and pored upon
Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,
But learn a magic which recoils upon
The adept who pursues it: all the sins
We find in others, Nature made our own;
All our advantages are those of Fortune;
Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents,
And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well
We should remember Fortune can take nought
Save what she gave—the rest was nakedness,
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities,
The universal heritage, to battle
With as we may, and least in humblest stations,
Where Hunger swallows all in one low want,
And the original ordinance, that man
Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions
Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low,
And false, and hollow—clay from first to last,
The Prince's urn no less than potter's vessel.
Our Fame is in men's breath, our lives upon
Less than their breath; our durance upon days,
Our days on seasons; our whole being on
Something which is not us!—So, we are slaves,
The greatest as the meanest—nothing rests
Upon our will; the will itself no less
Depends upon a straw than on a storm;
And when we think we lead, we are most led,
And still towards Death, a thing which comes as much
Without our act or choice as birth, so that
Methinks we must have sinned in some old world,
And this is Hell: the best is, that it is not
Eternal.

Mar.
These are things we cannot judge
On earth.

Doge.
And how then shall we judge each other,
Who are all earth, and I, who am called upon
To judge my son? I have administered
My country faithfully—victoriously—
I dare them to the proof, the chart of what
She was and is: my reign has doubled realms;
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice
Has left, or is about to leave, me single.

Mar.
And Foscari? I do not think of such things,
So I be left with him.

Doge.
You shall be so;
Thus much they cannot well deny.

Mar.
And if
They should, I will fly with him.

Doge.
That can ne'er be.
And whither would you fly?

Mar.
I know not, reck not—
To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman—
Any where, where we might respire unfettered,
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable
To edicts of inquisitors of state.

Doge.
What, wouldst thou have a renegade for husband,
And turn him into traitor?

Mar.
He is none!
The Country is the traitress, which thrusts forth
Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny
Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem
None rebels except subjects? The Prince who
Neglects or violates his trust is more
A brigand than the robber-chief.

Doge.
I cannot
Charge me with such a breach of faith.

Mar.
No; thou
Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's
A code of mercy by comparison.

Doge.
I found the law; I did not make it. Were I
A subject, still I might find parts and portions
Fit for amendment; but as Prince, I never
Would change, for the sake of my house, the charter
Left by our fathers.

Mar.
Did they make it for
The ruin of their children?

Doge.
Under such laws, Venice
Has risen to what she is—a state to rival
In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add,
In glory (for we have had Roman spirits
Amongst us), all that history has bequeathed
Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when
The people swayed by Senates.

Mar.
Rather say,
Groaned under the stern Oligarchs.

Doge.
Perhaps so;
But yet subdued the World: in such a state
An individual, be he richest of
Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest,
Without a name, is alike nothing, when
The policy, irrevocably tending
To one great end, must be maintained in vigour.

Mar.
This means that you are more a Doge than father.

Doge.
It means, I am more citizen than either.
If we had not for many centuries
Had thousands of such citizens, and shall,
I trust, have still such, Venice were no city.

Mar.
Accurséd be the city where the laws
Would stifle Nature's!

Doge.
Had I as many sons
As I have years, I would have given them all,
Not without feeling, but I would have given them
To the State's service, to fulfil her wishes,
On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be,
As it, alas! has been, to ostracism,
Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse
She might decree.

Mar.
And this is Patriotism?
To me it seems the worst barbarity.
Let me seek out my husband: the sage “Ten,”
With all its jealousy, will hardly war
So far with a weak woman as deny me
A moment's access to his dungeon.

Doge.
I'll
So far take on myself, as order that
You may be admitted.

Mar.
And what shall I say
To Foscari from his father?

Doge.
That he obey
The laws.

Mar.
And nothing more? Will you not see him
Ere he depart? It may be the last time.

Doge.
The last!—my boy!—the last time I shall see
My last of children! Tell him I will come.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

Scene I.

—The prison of Jacopo Foscari.
Jac. Fos.
(solus).
No light, save yon faint gleam which shows me walls
Which never echoed but to Sorrow's sounds,
The sigh of long imprisonment, the step
Of feet on which the iron clanked the groan
Of Death, the imprecation of Despair!
And yet for this I have returned to Venice,
With some faint hope, 'tis true, that Time, which wears
The marble down, had worn away the hate
Of men's hearts; but I knew them not, and here
Must I consume my own, which never beat
For Venice but with such a yearning as
The dove has for her distant nest, when wheeling
High in the air on her return to greet
Her callow brood. What letters are these which
[Approaching the wall.
Are scrawled along the inexorable wall?
Will the gleam let me trace them? Ah! the names
Of my sad predecessors in this place,
The dates of their despair, the brief words of
A grief too great for many. This stone page
Holds like an epitaph their history;
And the poor captive's tale is graven on
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which bears
His own and his belovéd's name. Alas!
I recognise some names familiar to me,
And blighted like to mine, which I will add,
Fittest for such a chronicle as this,
Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.

[He engraves his name.
Enter a Familiar of “the Ten.”
Fam.
I bring you food.

Jac. Fos.
I pray you set it down;
I am past hunger: but my lips are parched—
The water!

Fam.
There.

Jac. Fos.
(after drinking).
I thank you: I am better.

Fam.
I am commanded to inform you that
Your further trial is postponed.

Jac. Fos.
Till when?

Fam.
I know not.—It is also in my orders
That your illustrious lady be admitted.

Jac. Fos.
Ah! they relent, then—I had ceased to hope it:
'Twas time.

Enter Marina.
Mar.
My best belovéd!

Jac. Fos.
(embracing her).
My true wife,
And only friend! What happiness!

Mar.
We'll part
No more.

Jac. Fos.
How! would'st thou share a dungeon?

Mar.
Aye,
The rack, the grave, all—any thing with thee,
But the tomb last of all, for there we shall
Be ignorant of each other, yet I will
Share that—all things except new separation;
It is too much to have survived the first.
How dost thou? How are those worn limbs? Alas!
Why do I ask? Thy paleness—

Jac. Fos.
'Tis the joy
Of seeing thee again so soon, and so
Without expectancy, has sent the blood
Back to my heart, and left my cheeks like thine,
For thou art pale too, my Marina!

Mar.
'Tis
The gloom of this eternal cell, which never
Knew sunbeam, and the sallow sullen glare
Of the familiar's torch, which seems akin
To darkness more than light, by lending to
The dungeon vapours its bituminous smoke,
Which cloud whate'er we gaze on, even thine eyes—
No, not thine eyes—they sparkle—how they sparkle!

Jac. Fos.
And thine!—but I am blinded by the torch.

Mar.
As I had been without it. Couldst thou see here?

Jac. Fos.
Nothing at first; but use and time had taught me
Familiarity with what was darkness;
And the grey twilight of such glimmerings as
Glide through the crevices made by the winds
Was kinder to mine eyes than the full Sun,
When gorgeously o'ergilding any towers
Save those of Venice; but a moment ere
Thou camest hither I was busy writing.

Mar.
What?

Jac. Fos.
My name: look, 'tis there—recorded next
The name of him who here preceded me,—
If dungeon dates say true.

Mar.
And what of him?

Jac. Fos.
These walls are silent of men's ends; they only
Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such stern walls
Were never piled on high save o'er the dead,
Or those who soon must be so.—What of him?
Thou askest.—What of me? may soon be asked,
With the like answer—doubt and dreadful surmise—
Unless thou tell'st my tale.

Mar.
I speak of thee!

Jac. Fos.
And wherefore not? All then shall speak of me:
The tyranny of silence is not lasting,
And, though events be hidden, just men's groans
Will burst all cerement, even a living grave's!
I do not doubt my memory, but my life;
And neither do I fear.

Mar.
Thy life is safe.

Jac. Fos.
And liberty?

Mar.
The mind should make its own!

Jac. Fos.
That has a noble sound; but 'tis a sound,
A music most impressive, but too transient:
The Mind is much, but is not all. The Mind
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death,
And torture positive, far worse than death
(If death be a deep sleep), without a groan,
Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges
Than me; but 'tis not all, for there are things
More woful—such as this small dungeon, where
I may breathe many years.

Mar.
Alas! and this
Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee
Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is Prince.

Jac. Fos.
That thought would scarcely aid me to endure it.
My doom is common; many are in dungeons,
But none like mine, so near their father's palace;
But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope
Will stream along those moted rays of light
Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford
Our only day; for, save the gaoler's torch,
And a strange firefly, which was quickly caught
Last night in yon enormous spider's net,
I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas!
I know if mind may bear us up, or no,
For I have such, and shown it before men;
It sinks in solitude: my soul is social.

Mar.
I will be with thee.

Jac. Fos.
Ah! if it were so!
But that they never granted—nor will grant,
And I shall be alone: no men; no books—
Those lying likenesses of lying men.
I asked for even those outlines of their kind,
Which they term annals, history, what you will,
Which men bequeath as portraits, and they were
Refused me,—so these walls have been my study,
More faithful pictures of Venetian story,
With all their blank, or dismal stains, than is
The Hall not far from hence, which bears on high
Hundreds of Doges, and their deeds and dates.

Mar.
I come to tell thee the result of their
Last council on thy doom.

Jac. Fos.
I know it—look!

[He points to his limbs, as referring to the Question which he had undergone.
Mar.
No—no—no more of that: even they relent
From that atrocity.

Jac. Fos.
What then?

Mar.
That you
Return to Candia.

Jac. Fos.
Then my last hope's gone.
I could endure my dungeon, for 'twas Venice;
I could support the torture, there was something
In my native air that buoyed my spirits up
Like a ship on the Ocean tossed by storms,
But proudly still bestriding the high waves,
And holding on its course; but there, afar,
In that accurséd isle of slaves and captives,
And unbelievers, like a stranded wreck,
My very soul seemed mouldering in my bosom,
And piecemeal I shall perish, if remanded.

Mar.
And here?

Jac. Fos.
At once—by better means, as briefer.
What! would they even deny me my Sire's sepulchre,
As well as home and heritage?

Mar.
My husband!
I have sued to accompany thee hence,
And not so hopelessly. This love of thine
For an ungrateful and tyrannic soil
Is Passion, and not Patriotism; for me,
So I could see thee with a quiet aspect,
And the sweet freedom of the earth and air,
I would not cavil about climes or regions.
This crowd of palaces and prisons is not
A Paradise; its first inhabitants
Were wretched exiles.

Jac. Fos.
Well I know how wretched!

Mar.
And yet you see how, from their banishment
Before the Tartar into these salt isles,
Their antique energy of mind, all that
Remained of Rome for their inheritance,
Created by degrees an ocean Rome;
And shall an evil, which so often leads
To good, depress thee thus?

Jac. Fos.
Had I gone forth
From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking
Another region, with their flocks and herds;
Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion,
Or like our fathers, driven by Attila
From fertile Italy, to barren islets,
I would have given some tears to my late country
And many thoughts; but afterwards addressed
Myself, with those about me, to create
A new home and fresh state: perhaps I could
Have borne this—though I know not.

Mar.
Wherefore not?
It was the lot of millions, and must be
The fate of myriads more.

Jac. Fos.
Aye—we but hear
Of the survivors' toil in their new lands,
Their numbers and success; but who can number
The hearts which broke in silence at that parting,
Or after their departure; of that malady
Which calls up green and native fields to view
From the rough deep, with such identity
To the poor exile's fevered eye, that he
Can scarcely be restrained from treading them?
That melody, which out of tones and tunes
Collects such pasture for the longing sorrow
Of the sad mountaineer, when far away
From his snow canopy of cliffs and clouds,
That he feeds on the sweet, but poisonous thought,
And dies. You call this weakness! It is strength,
I say,—the parent of all honest feeling.
He who loves not his Country, can love nothing.

Mar.
Obey her, then: 'tis she that puts thee forth.

Jac. Fos.
Aye, there it is; 'tis like a mother's curse
Upon my soul—the mark is set upon me.
The exiles you speak of went forth by nations,
Their hands upheld each other by the way,
Their tents were pitched together—I'm alone.

Mar.
You shall be so no more—I will go with thee.

Jac. Fos.
My best Marina!—and our children?

Mar.
They,
I fear, by the prevention of the state's
Abhorrent policy, (which holds all ties
As threads, which may be broken at her pleasure),
Will not be suffered to proceed with us.

Jac. Fos.
And canst thou leave them?

Mar.
Yes—with many a pang!
But—I can leave them, children as they are,
To teach you to be less a child. From this
Learn you to sway your feelings, when exacted
By duties paramount; and 'tis our first
On earth to bear.

Jac. Fos.
Have I not borne?

Mar.
Too much
From tyrannous injustice, and enough
To teach you not to shrink now from a lot,
Which, as compared with what you have undergone
Of late, is mercy.

Jac. Fos.
Ah! you never yet
Were far away from Venice, never saw
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of the vessel's track
Seemed ploughing deep into your heart; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires
So calmly with its gold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbéd vision
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.

Mar.
I will divide this with you. Let us think
Of our departure from this much-loved city,
(Since you must love it, as it seems,) and this
Chamber of state, her gratitude allots you.
Our children will be cared for by the Doge,
And by my uncles; we must sail ere night.

Jac. Fos.
That 's sudden. Shall I not behold my father?

Mar.
You will.

Jac. Fos.
Where?

Mar.
Here, or in the ducal chamber—
He said not which. I would that you could bear
Your exile as he bears it.

Jac. Fos.
Blame him not.
I sometimes murmur for a moment; but
He could not now act otherwise. A show
Of feeling or compassion on his part
Would have but drawn upon his agéd head
Suspicion from “the Ten,” and upon mine
Accumulated ills.

Mar.
Accumulated!
What pangs are those they have spared you?

Jac. Fos.
That of leaving
Venice without beholding him or you,
Which might have been forbidden now, as 'twas
Upon my former exile.

Mar.
That is true,
And thus far I am also the State's debtor,
And shall be more so when I see us both
Floating on the free waves—away—away—
Be it to the earth's end, from this abhorred,
Unjust, and—

Jac. Fos.
Curse it not. If I am silent,
Who dares accuse my Country?

Mar.
Men and Angels!
The blood of myriads reeking up to Heaven,
The groans of slaves in chains, and men in dungeons,
Mothers, and wives, and sons, and sires, and subjects,
Held in the bondage of ten bald-heads; and
Though last, not least, thy silence! Couldst thou say
Aught in its favour, who would praise like thee?

Jac. Fos.
Let us address us then, since so it must be,
To our departure. Who comes here?

Enter Loredano attended by Familiars.
Lor.
(to the Familiars).
Retire,
But leave the torch.

[Exeunt the two Familiars.
Jac. Fos.
Most welcome, noble Signor.
I did not deem this poor place could have drawn
Such presence hither.

Lor.
'Tis not the first time
I have visited these places.

Mar.
Nor would be
The last, were all men's merits well rewarded.
Came you here to insult us, or remain
As spy upon us, or as hostage for us?

Lor.
Neither are of my office, noble Lady!
I am sent hither to your husband, to
Announce “the Ten's” decree.

Mar.
That tenderness
Has been anticipated: it is known.

Lor.
As how?

Mar.
I have informed him, not so gently,
Doubtless, as your nice feelings would prescribe,
The indulgence of your colleagues; but he knew it.
If you come for our thanks, take them, and hence!
The dungeon gloom is deep enough without you,
And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, though
Their sting is honester.

Jac. Fos.
I pray you, calm you:
What can avail such words?

Mar.
To let him know
That he is known.

Lor.
Let the fair dame preserve
Her sex's privilege.

Mar.
I have some sons, sir,
Will one day thank you better.

Lor.
You do well
To nurse them wisely. Foscari—you know
Your sentence, then?

Jac. Fos.
Return to Candia?

Lor.
True—
For life.

Jac. Fos.
Not long.

Lor.
I said—for life.

Jac. Fos.
And I
Repeat—not long.

Lor.
A year's imprisonment
In Canea—afterwards the freedom of
The whole isle.

Jac. Fos.
Both the same to me: the after
Freedom as is the first imprisonment.
Is't true my wife accompanies me?

Lor.
Yes,
If she so wills it.

Mar.
Who obtained that justice?

Lor.
One who wars not with women.

Mar.
But oppresses
Men: howsoever let him have my thanks
For the only boon I would have asked or taken
From him or such as he is.

Lor.
He receives them
As they are offered.

Mar.
May they thrive with him
So much!—no more.

Jac. Fos.
Is this, sir, your whole mission?
Because we have brief time for preparation,
And you perceive your presence doth disquiet
This lady, of a house noble as yours.

Mar.
Nobler!

Lor.
How nobler?

Mar.
As more generous!
We say the “generous steed” to express the purity
Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although
Venetian (who see few steeds save of bronze),
From those Venetians who have skirred the coasts
Of Egypt and her neighbour Araby:
And why not say as soon the “generous man?”
If race be aught, it is in qualities
More than in years; and mine, which is as old
As yours, is better in its product, nay—
Look not so stern—but get you back, and pore
Upon your genealogic tree's most green
Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there
Blush to find ancestors, who would have blushed
For such a son—thou cold inveterate hater!

Jac. Fos.
Again, Marina!

Mar.
Again! still, Marina.
See you not, he comes here to glut his hate
With a last look upon our misery?
Let him partake it!

Jac. Fos.
That were difficult.

Mar.
Nothing more easy. He partakes it now—
Aye, he may veil beneath a marble brow
And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it.
A few brief words of truth shame the Devil's servants
No less than Master; I have probed his soul
A moment, as the Eternal Fire, ere long,
Will reach it always. See how he shrinks from me!
With death, and chains, and exile in his hand,
To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks fit;
They are his weapons, not his armour, for
I have pierced him to the core of his cold heart.
I care not for his frowns! We can but die,
And he but live, for him the very worst
Of destinies: each day secures him more
His tempter's,

Jac. Fos.
This is mere insanity.

Mar.
It may be so; and who hath made us mad?

Lor.
Let her go on; it irks not me.

Mar.
That 's false!
You came here to enjoy a heartless triumph
Of cold looks upon manifold griefs! You came
To be sued to in vain—to mark our tears,
And hoard our groans—to gaze upon the wreck
Which you have made a Prince's son—my husband;
In short, to trample on the fallen—an office
The hangman shrinks from, as all men from him!
How have you sped? We are wretched, Signor, as
Your plots could make, and vengeance could desire us,
And how feel you?

Lor.
As rocks.

Mar.
By thunder blasted:
They feel not, but no less are shivered. Come,
Foscari; now let us go, and leave this felon,
The sole fit habitant of such a cell,
Which he has peopled often, but ne'er fitly
Till he himself shall brood in it alone.

Enter the Doge.
Jac. Fos.
My father!

Doge
(embracing him).
Jacopo! my son—my son!

Jac. Fos.
My father still! How long it is since I
Have heard thee name my name—our name!

Doge.
My boy!
Couldst thou but know—

Jac. Fos.
I rarely, sir, have murmured.

Doge.
I feel too much thou hast not.

Mar.
Doge, look there!

[She points to Loredano.
Doge.
I see the man—what mean'st thou?

Mar.
Caution!

Lor.
Being
The virtue which this noble lady most
May practise, she doth well to recommend it.

Mar.
Wretch! 'tis no virtue, but the policy
Of those who fain must deal perforce with vice:
As such I recommend it, as I would
To one whose foot was on an adder's path.

Doge.
Daughter, it is superfluous; I have long
Known Loredano.

Lor.
You may know him better.

Mar.
Yes; worse he could not.

Jac. Fos.
Father, let not these
Our parting hours be lost in listening to
Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it—is it,
Indeed, our last of meetings?

Doge.
You behold
These white hairs!

Jac. Fos.
And I feel, besides, that mine
Will never be so white. Embrace me, father!
I loved you ever—never more than now.
Look to my children—to your last child's children:
Let them be all to you which he was once,
And never be to you what I am now.
May I not see them also?

Mar.
No—not here.

Jac. Fos.
They might behold their parent any where.

Mar.
I would that they beheld their father in
A place which would not mingle fear with love,
To freeze their young blood in its natural current.
They have fed well, slept soft, and knew not that
Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. Well,
I know his fate may one day be their heritage,
But let it only be their heritage,
And not their present fee. Their senses, though
Alive to love, are yet awake to terror;
And these vile damps, too, and yon thick green wave
Which floats above the place where we now stand—
A cell so far below the water's level,
Sending its pestilence through every crevice,
Might strike them: this is not their atmosphere,
However you—and you—and most of all,
As worthiest—you, sir, noble Loredano!
May breathe it without prejudice.

Jac. Fos.
I had not
Reflected upon this, but acquiesce.
I shall depart, then, without meeting them?

Doge.
Not so: they shall await you in my chamber.

Jac. Fos.
And must I leave them—all?

Lor.
You must.

Jac. Fos.
Not one?

Lor.
They are the State's.

Mar.
I thought they had been mine.

Lor.
They are, in all maternal things.

Mar.
That is,
In all things painful. If they're sick, they will
Be left to me to tend them; should they die,
To me to bury and to mourn; but if
They live, they'll make you soldiers, senators,
Slaves, exiles—what you will; or if they are
Females with portions, brides and bribes for nobles!
Behold the State's care for its sons and mothers!

Lor.
The hour approaches, and the wind is fair.

Jac. Fos.
How know you that here, where the genial wind
Ne'er blows in all its blustering freedom?

Lor.
'Twas so
When I came here. The galley floats within
A bow-shot of the “Riva di Schiavoni.”

Jac. Fos.
Father! I pray you to precede me, and
Prepare my children to behold their father.

Doge.
Be firm, my son!

Jac. Fos.
I will do my endeavour.

Mar.
Farewell! at least to this detested dungeon,
And him to whose good offices you owe
In part your past imprisonment.

Lor.
And present
Liberation.

Doge.
He speaks truth.

Jac. Fos.
No doubt! but 'tis
Exchange of chains for heavier chains I owe him.
He knows this, or he had not sought to change them,
But I reproach not.

Lor.
The time narrows, Signor.

Jac. Fos.
Alas! I little thought so lingeringly
To leave abodes like this: but when I feel
That every step I take, even from this cell,
Is one away from Venice, I look back
Even on these dull damp walls, and—

Doge.
Boy! no tears.

Mar.
Let them flow on: he wept not on the rack
To shame him, and they cannot shame him now.
They will relieve his heart—that too kind heart—
And I will find an hour to wipe away
Those tears, or add my own. I could weep now,
But would not gratify yon wretch so far.
Let us proceed. Doge, lead the way.

Lor.
(to the Familiar).
The torch, there!

Mar.
Yes, light us on, as to a funeral pyre,
With Loredano mourning like an heir.

Doge.
My son, you are feeble; take this hand.

Jac. Fos.
Alas!
Must youth support itself on age, and I
Who ought to be the prop of yours?

Lor.
Take mine.

Mar.
Touch it not, Foscari; 'twill sting you. Signor,
Stand off! be sure, that if a grasp of yours
Would raise us from the gulf wherein we are plunged,
No hand of ours would stretch itself to meet it.
Come, Foscari, take the hand the altar gave you;
It could not save, but will support you ever.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Scene I.

—A Hall in the Ducal Palace.
Enter Loredano and Barbarigo.
Bar.
And have you confidence in such a project?

Lor.
I have.

Bar.
'Tis hard upon his years.

Lor.
Say rather
Kind to relieve him from the cares of State.

Bar.
'Twill break his heart.

Lor.
Age has no heart to break.
He has seen his son's half broken, and, except
A start of feeling in his dungeon, never
Swerved.

Bar.
In his countenance, I grant you, never;
But I have seen him sometimes in a calm
So desolate, that the most clamorous grief
Had nought to envy him within. Where is he?

Lor.
In his own portion of the palace, with
His son, and the whole race of Foscaris.

Bar.
Bidding farewell.

Lor.
A last! as, soon, he shall
Bid to his Dukedom.

Bar.
When embarks the son?

Lor.
Forthwith—when this long leave is taken. 'Tis
Time to admonish them again.

Bar.
Forbear;
Retrench not from their moments.

Lor.
Not I, now
We have higher business for our own. This day
Shall be the last of the old Doge's reign,
As the first of his son's last banishment,
And that is vengeance.

Bar.
In my mind, too deep.

Lor.
'Tis moderate—not even life for life, the rule
Denounced of retribution from all time;
They owe me still my father's and my uncle's.

Bar.
Did not the Doge deny this strongly?

Lor.
Doubtless.

Bar.
And did not this shake your suspicion?

Lor.
No.

Bar.
But if this deposition should take place
By our united influence in the Council,
It must be done with all the deference
Due to his years, his station, and his deeds.

Lor.
As much of ceremony as you will,
So that the thing be done. You may, for aught
I care, depute the Council on their knees,
(Like Barbarossa to the Pope,) to beg him
To have the courtesy to abdicate.

Bar.
What if he will not?

Lor.
We'll elect another,
And make him null.

Bar.
But will the laws uphold us?

Lor.
What laws?—“The Ten” are laws; and if they were not,
I will be legislator in this business.

Bar.
At your own peril?

Lor.
There is none, I tell you,
Our powers are such.

Bar.
But he has twice already
Solicited permission to retire,
And twice it was refused.

Lor.
The better reason
To grant it the third time.

Bar.
Unasked?

Lor.
It shows
The impression of his former instances:
If they were from his heart, he may be thankful:
If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy.
Come, they are met by this time; let us join them,
And be thou fixed in purpose for this once.
I have prepared such arguments as will not
Fail to move them, and to remove him: since
Their thoughts, their objects, have been sounded, do not
You, with your wonted scruples, teach us pause,
And all will prosper.

Bar.
Could I but be certain
This is no prelude to such persecution
Of the sire as has fallen upon the son,
I would support you.

Lor.
He is safe, I tell you;
His fourscore years and five may linger on
As long as he can drag them: 'tis his throne
Alone is aimed at.

Bar.
But discarded Princes
Are seldom long of life.

Lor.
And men of eighty
More seldom still.

Bar.
And why not wait these few years?

Lor.
Because we have waited long enough, and he
Lived longer than enough. Hence! in to council!

[Exeunt Loredano and Barbarigo.
Enter Memmo and a Senator.
Sen.
A summons to “the Ten!” why so?

Mem.
“The Ten”
Alone can answer; they are rarely wont
To let their thoughts anticipate their purpose
By previous proclamation. We are summoned—
That is enough.

Sen.
For them, but not for us;
I would know why.

Mem.
You will know why anon,
If you obey: and, if not, you no less
Will know why you should have obeyed.

Sen.
I mean not
To oppose them, but—

Mem.
In Venice “but”'s a traitor.
But me no “buts,” unless you would pass o'er
The Bridge which few repass.

Sen.
I am silent.

Mem.
Why
Thus hesitate? “The Ten” have called in aid
Of their deliberation five and twenty
Patricians of the Senate—you are one,
And I another; and it seems to me
Both honoured by the choice or chance which leads us
To mingle with a body so august.

Sen.
Most true. I say no more.

Mem.
As we hope, Signor,
And all may honestly, (that is, all those
Of noble blood may,) one day hope to be
Decemvir, it is surely for the Senate's
Chosen delegates, a school of wisdom, to
Be thus admitted, though as novices,
To view the mysteries.

Sen.
Let us view them: they,
No doubt, are worth it.

Mem.
Being worth our lives
If we divulge them, doubtless they are worth
Something, at least to you or me.

Sen.
I sought not
A place within the sanctuary; but being
Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen,
I shall fulfil my office.

Mem.
Let us not
Be latest in obeying “the Ten's” summons.

Sen.
All are not met, but I am of your thought
So far—let's in.

Mem.
The earliest are most welcome
In earnest councils—we will not be least so.

[Exeunt.
Enter the Doge, Jacopo Foscari, and Marina.
Jac. Fos.
Ah, father! though I must and will depart,
Yet—yet—I pray you to obtain for me
That I once more return unto my home,
Howe'er remote the period. Let there be
A point of time, as beacon to my heart,
With any penalty annexed they please,
But let me still return.

Doge.
Son Jacopo,
Go and obey our Country's will: 'tis not
For us to look beyond.

Jac. Fos.
But still I must
Look back. I pray you think of me.

Doge.
Alas!
You ever were my dearest offspring, when
They were more numerous, nor can be less so
Now you are last; but did the State demand
The exile of the disinterréd ashes
Of your three goodly brothers, now in earth,
And their desponding shades came flitting round
To impede the act, I must no less obey
A duty, paramount to every duty.

Mar.
My husband! let us on: this but prolongs
Our sorrow.

Jac. Fos.
But we are not summoned yet;
The galley's sails are not unfurled:—who knows?
The wind may change.

Mar.
And if it do, it will not
Change their hearts, or your lot: the galley's oars
Will quickly clear the harbour.

Jac. Fos.
O, ye Elements!
Where are your storms?

Mar.
In human breasts. Alas!
Will nothing calm you?

Jac. Fos.
Never yet did mariner
Put up to patron saint such prayers for prosperous
And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you,
Ye tutelar saints of my own city! which
Ye love not with more holy love than I,
To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves,
And waken Auster, sovereign of the Tempest!
Till the sea dash me back on my own shore
A broken corse upon the barren Lido,
Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt
The land I love, and never shall see more!

Mar.
And wish you this with me beside you?

Jac. Fos.
No—
No—not for thee, too good, too kind! May'st thou
Live long to be a mother to those children
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives
Of such support! But for myself alone,
May all the winds of Heaven howl down the Gulf,
And tear the vessel, till the mariners,
Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on me,
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then
Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering
To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me
Will be more merciful than man, and bear me
Dead, but still bear me to a native grave,
From fishers' hands, upon the desolate strand,
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er received
One lacerated like the heart which then
Will be.—But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?

Mar.
To man thyself, I trust, with time, to master
Such useless passion. Until now thou wert
A sufferer, but not a loud one: why
What is this to the things thou hast borne in silence—
Imprisonment and actual torture?

Jac. Fos.
Double,
Triple, and tenfold torture! But you are right,
It must be borne. Father, your blessing.

Doge.
Would
It could avail thee! but no less thou hast it.

Jac. Fos.
Forgive—

Doge.
What?

Jac. Fos.
My poor mother, for my birth,
And me for having lived, and you yourself
(As I forgive you), for the gift of life,
Which you bestowed upon me as my sire.

Mar.
What hast thou done?

Jac. Fos.
Nothing. I cannot charge
My memory with much save sorrow: but
I have been so beyond the common lot
Chastened and visited, I needs must think
That I was wicked. If it be so, may
What I have undergone here keep me from
A like hereafter!

Mar.
Fear not: that's reserved
For your oppressors.

Jac. Fos.
Let me hope not.

Mar.
Hope not?

Jac. Fos.
I cannot wish them all they have inflicted.

Mar.
All! the consummate fiends! A thousandfold
May the worm which never dieth feed upon them!

Jac. Fos.
They may repent.

Mar.
And if they do, Heaven will not
Accept the tardy penitence of demons.

Enter an Officer and Guards.
Offi.
Signor! the boat is at the shore—the wind
Is rising—we are ready to attend you.

Jac. Fos.
And I to be attended. Once more, father,
Your hand!

Doge.
Take it. Alas! how thine own trembles!

Jac. Fos.
No—you mistake; 'tis yours that shakes, my father.
Farewell!

Doge.
Farewell! Is there aught else?

Jac. Fos.
No—nothing.
[To the Officer.
Lend me your arm, good Signor.

Offi.
You turn pale—
Let me support you—paler—ho! some aid there!
Some water!

Mar.
Ah, he is dying!

Jac. Fos.
Now, I'm ready—
My eyes swim strangely—where's the door?

Mar.
Away!
Let me support him—my best love! Oh, God!
How faintly beats this heart—this pulse!

Jac. Fos.
The light!
Is it the light?—I am faint.

[Officer presents him with water.
Offi.
He will be better,
Perhaps, in the air.

Jac. Fos.
I doubt not. Father—wife—
Your hands!

Mar.
There 's death in that damp, clammy grasp.
Oh, God!—My Foscari, how fare you?

Jac. Fos.
Well!

[He dies.
Offi.
He's gone!

Doge.
He's free.

Mar.
No—no, he is not dead;
There must be life yet in that heart—he could not
Thus leave me.

Doge.
Daughter!

Mar.
Hold thy peace, old man!
I am no daughter now—thou hast no son.
Oh, Foscari!

Offi.
We must remove the body.

Mar.
Touch it not, dungeon miscreants! your base office
Ends with his life, and goes not beyond murder,
Even by your murderous laws. Leave his remains
To those who know to honour them.

Offi.
I must
Inform the Signory, and learn their pleasure.

Doge.
Inform the Signory from me, the Doge,
They have no further power upon those ashes:
While he lived, he was theirs, as fits a subject—
Now he is mine—my broken-hearted boy!

[Exit Officer.
Mar.
And I must live!

Doge.
Your children live, Marina.

Mar.
My children! true—they live, and I must live
To bring them up to serve the State, and die
As died their father. Oh! what best of blessings
Were barrenness in Venice! Would my mother
Had been so!

Doge.
My unhappy children!

Mar.
What!
You feel it then at last—you!—Where is now
The Stoic of the State?

Doge
(throwing himself down by the body).
Here!

Mar.
Aye, weep on!
I thought you had no tears—you hoarded them
Until they are useless; but weep on! he never
Shall weep more—never, never more.

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo.
Lor.
What's here?

Mar.
Ah! the Devil come to insult the dead! Avaunt!
Incarnate Lucifer! 'tis holy ground.
A martyr's ashes now lie there, which make it
A shrine. Get thee back to thy place of torment!

Bar.
Lady, we knew not of this sad event,
But passed here merely on our path from council.

Mar.
Pass on.

Lor.
We sought the Doge.

Mar.
(pointing to the Doge, who is still on the ground by his son's body).
He's busy, look,
About the business you provided for him.
Are ye content?

Bar.
We will not interrupt
A parent's sorrows.

Mar.
No, ye only make them,
Then leave them.

Doge
(rising).
Sirs, I am ready.

Bar.
No—not now.

Lor.
Yet 'twas important.

Doge.
If 'twas so, I can
Only repeat—I am ready.

Bar.
It shall not be
Just now, though Venice tottered o'er the deep
Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs.

Doge.
I thank you. If the tidings which you bring
Are evil, you may say them; nothing further
Can touch me more than him thou look'st on there;
If they be good, say on; you need not fear
That they can comfort me.

Bar.
I would they could!

Doge.
I spoke not to you, but to Loredano.
He understands me.

Mar.
Ah! I thought it would be so.

Doge.
What mean you?

Mar.
Lo! there is the blood beginning
To flow through the dead lips of Foscari—
The body bleeds in presence of the assassin.
[To Loredano.
Thou cowardly murderer by law, behold
How Death itself bears witness to thy deeds!

Doge.
My child! this is a phantasy of grief.
Bear hence the body. [To his attendants.]
Signors, if it please you,
Within an hour I'll hear you.

[Exeunt Doge, Marina, and attendants with the body. Manent Loredano and Barbarigo.
Bar.
He must not
Be troubled now.

Lor.
He said himself that nought
Could give him trouble farther.

Bar.
These are words;
But Grief is lonely, and the breaking in
Upon it barbarous.

Lor.
Sorrow preys upon
Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it
From its sad visions of the other world,
Than calling it at moments back to this.
The busy have no time for tears.

Bar.
And therefore
You would deprive this old man of all business?

Lor.
The thing 's decreed. The Giunta and “the Ten”
Have made it law—who shall oppose that law?

Bar.
Humanity!

Lor.
Because his son is dead?

Bar.
And yet unburied.

Lor.
Had we known this when
The act was passing, it might have suspended
Its passage, but impedes it not—once passed.

Bar.
I'll not consent.

Lor.
You have consented to
All that's essential—leave the rest to me.

Bar.
Why press his abdication now?

Lor.
The feelings
Of private passion may not interrupt
The public benefit; and what the State
Decides to-day must not give way before
To-morrow for a natural accident.

Bar.
You have a son.

Lor.
I have—and had a father.

Bar.
Still so inexorable?

Lor.
Still.

Bar.
But let him
Inter his son before we press upon him
This edict.

Lor.
Let him call up into life
My sire and uncle—I consent. Men may,
Even agéd men, be, or appear to be,
Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle
An atom of their ancestors from earth.
The victims are not equal; he has seen
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I
My sires by violent and mysterious maladies.
I used no poison, bribed no subtle master
Of the destructive art of healing, to
Shorten the path to the eternal cure.
His sons—and he had four—are dead, without
My dabbling in vile drugs.

Bar.
And art thou sure
He dealt in such?

Lor.
Most sure.

Bar.
And yet he seems
All openness.

Lor.
And so he seemed not long
Ago to Carmagnuola.

Bar.
The attainted
And foreign traitor?

Lor.
Even so: when he,
After the very night in which “the Ten”
(Joined with the Doge) decided his destruction,
Met the great Duke at daybreak with a jest,
Demanding whether he should augur him
“The good day or good night?” his Doge-ship answered,
“That he in truth had passed a night of vigil,
“In which” (he added with a gracious smile)
“There often has been question about you.”
'Twas true; the question was the death resolved
Of Carmagnuola, eight months ere he died;
And the old Doge, who knew him doomed, smiled on him
With deadly cozenage, eight long months beforehand—
Eight months of such hypocrisy as is
Learnt but in eighty years. Brave Carmagnuola
Is dead; so is young Foscari and his brethren—
I never smiled on them.

Bar.
Was Carmagnuola
Your friend?

Lor.
He was the safeguard of the city.
In early life its foe, but in his manhood,
Its saviour first, then victim.

Bar.
Ah! that seems
The penalty of saving cities. He
Whom we now act against not only saved
Our own, but added others to her sway.

Lor.
The Romans (and we ape them) gave a crown
To him who took a city: and they gave
A crown to him who saved a citizen
In battle: the rewards are equal. Now,
If we should measure forth the cities taken
By the Doge Foscari, with citizens
Destroyed by him, or through him, the account
Were fearfully against him, although narrowed
To private havoc, such as between him
And my dead father.

Bar.
Are you then thus fixed?

Lor.
Why, what should change me?

Bar.
That which changes me.
But you, I know, are marble to retain
A feud. But when all is accomplished, when
The old man is deposed, his name degraded,
His sons all dead, his family depressed,
And you and yours triumphant, shall you sleep?

Lor.
More soundly.

Bar.
That's an error, and you'll find it
Ere you sleep with your fathers.

Lor.
They sleep not
In their accelerated graves, nor will
Till Foscari fills his. Each night I see them
Stalk frowning round my couch, and, pointing towards
The ducal palace, marshal me to vengeance.

Bar.
Fancy's distemperature! There is no passion
More spectral or fantastical than Hate;
Not even its opposite, Love, so peoples air
With phantoms, as this madness of the heart.

Enter an Officer.
Lor.
Where go you, sirrah?

Offi.
By the ducal order
To forward the preparatory rites
For the late Foscari's interment.

Bar.
Their
Vault has been often opened of late years.

Lor.
'Twill be full soon, and may be closed for ever!

Offi.
May I pass on?

Lor.
You may.

Bar.
How bears the Doge
This last calamity?

Offi.
With desperate firmness.
In presence of another he says little,
But I perceive his lips move now and then;
And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining
Apartment, mutter forth the words—“My son!”
Scarce audibly. I must proceed.

[Exit Officer.
Bar.
This stroke
Will move all Venice in his favour.

Lor.
Right!
We must be speedy: let us call together
The delegates appointed to convey
The Council's resolution.

Bar.
I protest
Against it at this moment.

Lor.
As you please—
I'll take their voices on it ne'ertheless,
And see whose most may sway them, yours or mine.

[Exeunt Barbarigo and Loredano.

ACT V.

Scene I.

—The Doge's Apartment.
The Doge and Attendants.
Att.
My Lord, the deputation is in waiting;
But add, that if another hour would better
Accord with your will, they will make it theirs.

Doge.
To me all hours are like. Let them approach.

[Exit Attendant.
An Officer.
Prince! I have done your bidding.

Doge.
What command?

Offi.
A melancholy one—to call the attendance
Of—

Doge.
Enter the Deputation, consisting of six of the Signory and the Chief of the Ten.

Chief of the Ten.
In the first place, the Council doth condole
With the Doge on his late and private grief.

Doge.
No more—no more of that.

Chief of the Ten.
Will not the Duke
Accept the homage of respect?

Doge.
I do
Accept it as 'tis given—proceed.

Chief of the Ten.
“The Ten,”
With a selected giunta from the Senate
Of twenty-five of the best born patricians,
Having deliberated on the state
Of the Republic, and the o'erwhelming cares
Which, at this moment, doubly must oppress
Your years, so long devoted to your Country,
Have judged it fitting, with all reverence,
Now to solicit from your wisdom (which
Upon reflection must accord in this),
The resignation of the ducal ring,
Which you have worn so long and venerably:
And to prove that they are not ungrateful, nor
Cold to your years and services, they add
An appanage of twenty hundred golden
Ducats, to make retirement not less splendid
Than should become a Sovereign's retreat.

Doge.
Did I hear rightly?

Chief of the Ten.
Need I say again?

Doge.
No.—Have you done?

Chief of the Ten.
I have spoken. Twenty four
Hours are accorded you to give an answer.

Doge.
I shall not need so many seconds.

Chief of the Ten.
We
Will now retire.

Doge.
Stay! four and twenty hours
Will alter nothing which I have to say.

Chief of the Ten.
Speak!

Doge.
When I twice before reiterated
My wish to abdicate, it was refused me:
And not alone refused, but ye exacted
An oath from me that I would never more
Renew this instance. I have sworn to die
In full exertion of the functions, which
My Country called me here to exercise,
According to my honour and my conscience—
I cannot break my oath.

Chief of the Ten.
Reduce us not
To the alternative of a decree,
Instead of your compliance.

Doge.
Providence
Prolongs my days to prove and chasten me;
But ye have no right to reproach my length
Of days, since every hour has been the Country's.
I am ready to lay down my life for her,
As I have laid down dearer things than life:
But for my dignity—I hold it of
The whole Republic: when the general will
Is manifest, then you shall all be answered.

Chief of the Ten.
We grieve for such an answer; but it cannot
Avail you aught.

Doge.
I can submit to all things,
But nothing will advance; no, not a moment.
What you decree—decree.

Chief of the Ten.
With this, then, must we
Return to those who sent us?

Doge.
You have heard me.

Chief of the Ten.
With all due reverence we retire.

[Exeunt the Deputation, etc.
Enter an Attendant.
Att.
My Lord,
The noble dame Marina craves an audience.

Doge.
My time is hers.

Enter Marina.
Mar.
My Lord, if I intrude—
Perhaps you fain would be alone?

Doge.
Alone!
Alone, come all the world around me, I
Am now and evermore. But we will bear it.

Mar.
We will, and for the sake of those who are,
Endeavour—Oh, my husband!

Doge.
Give it way:
I cannot comfort thee.

Mar.
He might have lived,
So formed for gentle privacy of life,
So loving, so beloved; the native of
Another land, and who so blest and blessing
As my poor Foscari? Nothing was wanting
Unto his happiness and mine save not
To be Venetian.

Doge.
Or a Prince's son.

Mar.
Yes; all things which conduce to other men's
Imperfect happiness or high ambition,
By some strange destiny, to him proved deadly.
The Country and the People whom he loved,
The Prince of whom he was the elder born,
And—

Doge.
Soon may be a Prince no longer.

Mar.
How?

Doge.
They have taken my son from me, and now aim
At my too long worn diadem and ring.
Let them resume the gewgaws!

Mar.
Oh, the tyrants!
In such an hour too!

Doge.
'Tis the fittest time;
An hour ago I should have felt it.

Mar.
And
Will you not now resent it?—Oh, for vengeance!
But he, who, had he been enough protected,
Might have repaid protection in this moment,
Cannot assist his father.

Doge.
Nor should do so
Against his Country, had he a thousand lives
Instead of that—

Mar.
They tortured from him. This
May be pure patriotism. I am a woman:
To me my husband and my children were
Country and home. I loved him—how I loved him!
I have seen him pass through such an ordeal as
The old martyrs would have shrunk from: he is gone,
And I, who would have given my blood for him,
Have nought to give but tears! But could I compass
The retribution of his wrongs!—Well, well!
I have sons, who shall be men.

Doge.
Your grief distracts you.

Mar.
I thought I could have borne it, when I saw him
Bowed down by such oppression; yes, I thought
That I would rather look upon his corse
Than his prolonged captivity:—I am punished
For that thought now. Would I were in his grave!

Doge.
I must look on him once more.

Mar.
Come with me!

Doge.
Is he—

Mar.
Our bridal bed is now his bier.

Doge.
And he is in his shroud!

Mar.
Come, come, old man!

[Exeunt the Doge and Marina.
Enter Barbarigo and Loredano.
Bar.
(to an Attendant).
Where is the Doge?

Att.
This instant retired hence,
With the illustrious lady his son's widow.

Lor.
Where?

Att.
To the chamber where the body lies.

Bar.
Let us return, then.

Lor.
You forget, you cannot.
We have the implicit order of the Giunta
To await their coming here, and join them in
Their office: they'll be here soon after us.

Bar.
And will they press their answer on the Doge?

Lor.
'Twas his own wish that all should be done promptly.
He answered quickly, and must so be answered;
His dignity is looked to, his estate
Cared for—what would he more?

Bar.
Die in his robes:
He could not have lived long; but I have done
My best to save his honours, and opposed
This proposition to the last, though vainly.
Why would the general vote compel me hither?

Lor.
'Twas fit that some one of such different thoughts
From ours should be a witness, lest false tongues
Should whisper that a harsh majority
Dreaded to have its acts beheld by others.

Bar.
And not less, I must needs think, for the sake
Of humbling me for my vain opposition.
You are ingenious, Loredano, in
Your modes of vengeance, nay, poetical,
A very Ovid in the art of hating;
'Tis thus (although a secondary object,
Yet hate has microscopic eyes), to you
I owe, by way of foil to the more zealous,
This undesired association in
Your Giunta's duties.

Lor.
How!—my Giunta!

Bar.
Yours!
They speak your language, watch your nod, approve
Your plans, and do your work. Are they not yours?

Lor.
You talk unwarily. 'Twere best they hear not
This from you.

Bar.
Oh! they'll hear as much one day
From louder tongues than mine; they have gone beyond
Even their exorbitance of power: and when
This happens in the most contemned and abject
States, stung humanity will rise to check it.

Lor.
You talk but idly.

Bar.
That remains for proof.
Here come our colleagues.

Enter the Deputation as before.
Chief of the Ten.
Is the Duke aware
We seek his presence?

Att.
He shall be informed.

[Exit Attendant.
Bar.
The Duke is with his son.

Chief of the Ten.
If it be so,
We will remit him till the rites are over.
Let us return. 'Tis time enough to-morrow.

Lor.
(aside to Bar.).
Now the rich man's hell-fire upon your tongue,
Unquenched, unquenchable! I'll have it torn
From its vile babbling roots, till you shall utter
Nothing but sobs through blood, for this! Sage Signors,
I pray ye be not hasty.

[Aloud to the others.
Bar.
But be human!

Lor.
See, the Duke comes!

Enter the Doge.
Doge.
I have obeyed your summons.

Chief of the Ten.
We come once more to urge our past request.

Doge.
And I to answer.

Chief of the Ten.
What?

Doge.
My only answer.
You have heard it.

Chief of the Ten.
Hear you then the last decree,
Definitive and absolute!

Doge.
To the point—
To the point! I know of old the forms of office,
And gentle preludes to strong acts.—Go on!

Chief of the Ten.
You are no longer Doge; you are released
From your imperial oath as Sovereign;
Your ducal robes must be put off; but for
Your services, the State allots the appanage
Already mentioned in our former congress.
Three days are left you to remove from hence,
Under the penalty to see confiscated
All your own private fortune.

Doge.
That last clause,
I am proud to say, would not enrich the treasury.

Chief of the Ten.
Your answer, Duke!

Lor.
Your answer, Francis Foscari!

Doge.
If I could have foreseen that my old age
Was prejudicial to the State, the Chief
Of the Republic never would have shown
Himself so far ungrateful, as to place
His own high dignity before his Country;
But this life having been so many years
Not useless to that Country, I would fain
Have consecrated my last moments to her.
But the decree being rendered, I obey.

Chief of the Ten.
If you would have the three days named extended,
We willingly will lengthen them to eight,
As sign of our esteem.

Doge.
Not eight hours, Signor,
Not even eight minutes—there's the ducal ring,
[Taking off his ring and cap.
And there the ducal diadem! And so
The Adriatic 's free to wed another.

Chief of the Ten.
Yet go not forth so quickly.

Doge.
I am old, sir,
And even to move but slowly must begin
To move betimes. Methinks I see amongst you
A face I know not.—Senator! your name,
You, by your garb, Chief of the Forty!

Mem.
Signor,
I am the son of Marco Memmo.

Doge.
Ah!
Your father was my friend.—But sons and fathers!—
What, ho! my servants there!

Atten.
My Prince!

Doge.
No Prince—
There are the princes of the Prince! [Pointing to the Ten's Deputation.]
—Prepare
To part from hence upon the instant.

Chief of the Ten.
Why
So rashly? 'twill give scandal.

Doge.
Answer that;
[To the Ten.
It is your province.—Sirs, bestir yourselves:
[To the Servants.
There is one burthen which I beg you bear
With care, although 'tis past all farther harm—
But I will look to that myself.

Bar.
He means
The body of his son.

Doge.
And call Marina,
My daughter!

Enter Marina.
Doge.
Get thee ready, we must mourn
Elsewhere.

Mar.
And everywhere.

Doge.
True; but in freedom,
Without these jealous spies upon the great.
Signors, you may depart: what would you more?
We are going: do you fear that we shall bear
The palace with us? Its old walls, ten times
As old as I am, and I'm very old,
Have served you, so have I, and I and they
Could tell a tale; but I invoke them not
To fall upon you! else they would, as erst
The pillars of stone Dagon's temple on
The Israelite and his Philistine foes.
Such power I do believe there might exist
In such a curse as mine, provoked by such
As you; but I curse not. Adieu, good Signors!
May the next Duke be better than the present!

Lor.
The present Duke is Paschal Malipiero.

Doge.
Not till I pass the threshold of these doors.

Lor.
Saint Mark's great bell is soon about to toll
For his inauguration.

Doge.
Earth and Heaven!
Ye will reverberate this peal; and I
Live to hear this!—the first Doge who e'er heard
Such sound for his successor: happier he,
My attainted predecessor, stern Faliero—
This insult at the least was spared him.

Lor.
What!
Do you regret a traitor?

Doge.
No—I merely
Envy the dead.

Chief of the Ten.
My Lord, if you indeed
Are bent upon this rash abandonment
Of the State's palace, at the least retire
By the private staircase, which conducts you towards
The landing-place of the canal.

Doge.
No. I
Will now descend the stairs by which I mounted
To sovereignty—the Giants' Stairs, on whose
Broad eminence I was invested Duke.
My services have called me up those steps,
The malice of my foes will drive me down them.
There five and thirty years ago was I
Installed, and traversed these same halls, from which
I never thought to be divorced except
A corse—a corse, it might be, fighting for them—
But not pushed hence by fellow-citizens.
But come; my son and I will go together—
He to his grave, and I to pray for mine.

Chief of the Ten.
What! thus in public?

Doge.
I was publicly
Elected, and so will I be deposed.
Marina! art thou willing?

Mar.
Here 's my arm!

Doge.
And here my staff: thus propped will I go forth.

Chief of the Ten.
It must not be—the people will perceive it.

Doge.
The people!—There 's no people, you well know it,
Else you dare not deal thus by them or me.
There is a populace, perhaps, whose looks
May shame you; but they dare not groan nor curse you,
Save with their hearts and eyes.

Chief of the Ten.
You speak in passion,
Else—

Doge.
You have reason. I have spoken much
More than my wont: it is a foible which
Was not of mine, but more excuses you,
Inasmuch as it shows, that I approach
A dotage which may justify this deed
Of yours, although the law does not, nor will.
Farewell, sirs!

Bar.
You shall not depart without
An escort fitting past and present rank.
We will accompany, with due respect,
The Doge unto his private palace. Say!
My brethren, will we not?

Different voices.
Aye!—Aye!

Doge.
You shall not
Stir—in my train, at least. I entered here
As Sovereign—I go out as citizen
By the same portals, but as citizen.
All these vain ceremonies are base insults.
Which only ulcerate the heart the more,
Applying poisons there as antidotes.
Pomp is for Princes—I am none!—That 's false,
I am, but only to these gates.—Ah!

Lor.
Hark!

[The great bell of St. Mark's tolls.
Bar.
The bell!

Chief of the Ten.
St. Mark's, which tolls for the election
Of Malipiero.

Doge.
Well I recognise
The sound! I heard it once, but once before,
And that is five and thirty years ago;
Even then I was not young.

Bar.
Sit down, my Lord!
You tremble.

Doge.
'Tis the knell of my poor boy!
My heart aches bitterly.

Bar.
I pray you sit.

Doge.
No; my seat here has been a throne till now.
Marina! let us go.

Mar.
Most readily.

Doge
(walks a few steps, then stops).
I feel athirst—will no one bring me here
A cup of water?

Bar.
I—

Mar.
And I—

Lor.
And I—

[The Doge takes a goblet from the hand of Loredano.
Doge.
I take yours, Loredano, from the hand
Most fit for such an hour as this.

Lor.
Why so?

Doge.
'Tis said that our Venetian crystal has
Such pure antipathy to poisons as
To burst, if aught of venom touches it.
You bore this goblet, and it is not broken.

Lor.
Well, sir!

Doge.
Then it is false, or you are true.
For my own part, I credit neither; 'tis
An idle legend.

Mar.
You talk wildly, and
Had better now be seated, nor as yet
Depart. Ah! now you look as looked my husband!

Bar.
He sinks!—support him!—quick—a chair—support him!

Doge.
The bell tolls on!—let's hence—my brain 's on fire!

Bar.
I do beseech you, lean upon us!

Doge.
No!
A Sovereign should die standing. My poor boy!
Off with your arms!—That bell!

[The Doge drops down and dies.
Mar.
My God! My God!

Bar.
(to Lor.).
Behold! your work's completed!

Chief of the Ten.
Is there then
No aid? Call in assistance!

Att.
'Tis all over.

Chief of the Ten.
If it be so, at least his obsequies
Shall be such as befits his name and nation,
His rank and his devotion to the duties
Of the realm, while his age permitted him
To do himself and them full justice. Brethren,
Say, shall it not be so?

Bar.
He has not had
The misery to die a subject where
He reigned: then let his funeral rites be princely.

Chief of the Ten.
We are agreed, then?

All, except Lor.,
answer,
Yes.

Chief of the Ten.
Heaven's peace be with him!

Mar.
Signors, your pardon: this is mockery.
Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which,
A moment since, while yet it had a soul,
(A soul by whom you have increased your Empire,
And made your power as proud as was his glory),
You banished from his palace and tore down
From his high place, with such relentless coldness;
And now, when he can neither know these honours,
Nor would accept them if he could, you, Signors,
Purpose, with idle and superfluous pomp,
To make a pageant over what you trampled.
A princely funeral will be your reproach,
And not his honour.

Chief of the Ten.
Lady, we revoke not
Our purposes so readily.

Mar.
I know it,
As far as touches torturing the living.
I thought the dead had been beyond even you,
Though (some, no doubt) consigned to powers which may
Resemble that you exercise on earth.
Leave him to me; you would have done so for
His dregs of life, which you have kindly shortened:
It is my last of duties, and may prove
A dreary comfort in my desolation.
Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead,
And the apparel of the grave.

Chief of the Ten.
Do you
Pretend still to this office?

Mar.
I do, Signor.
Though his possessions have been all consumed
In the State's service, I have still my dowry,
Which shall be consecrated to his rites,
And those of—

[She stops with agitation.
Chief of the Ten.
Best retain it for your children.

Mar.
Aye, they are fatherless, I thank you.

Chief of the Ten.
We
Cannot comply with your request. His relics
Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and followed
Unto their home by the new Doge, not clad
As Doge, but simply as a senator.

Mar.
I have heard of murderers, who have interred
Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour,
Of so much splendour in hypocrisy
O'er those they slew. I've heard of widows' tears—
Alas! I have shed some—always thanks to you!
I've heard of Heirs in sables—you have left none
To the deceased, so you would act the part
Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done! as one day,
I trust, Heaven's will be done too!

Chief of the Ten.
Know you, Lady,
To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech?

Mar.
I know the former better than yourselves;
The latter—like yourselves; and can face both.
Wish you more funerals?

Bar.
Heed not her rash words;
Her circumstances must excuse her bearing.

Chief of the Ten.
We will not note them down.

Bar.
(turning to Lor., who is writing upon his tablets).
What art thou writing,
With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets?

Lor.
(pointing to the Doge's body).
That he has paid me!

Chief of the Ten.
What debt did he owe you?

Lor.
A long and just one; Nature's debt and mine.

[Curtain falls.

CAIN:

A MYSTERY.

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

• Adam.
• Cain.
• Abel.

SPIRITS.

• Angel of the Lord.
• Lucifer.

WOMEN.

• Eve.
• Adah.
• Zillah.

ACT I.

Scene I.

—The Land without Paradise.—Time, Sunrise.
Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Adah, Zillah, offering a Sacrifice.
Adam.
God, the Eternal! Infinite! All-wise!—
Who out of darkness on the deep didst make
Light on the waters with a word—All Hail!
Jehovah! with returning light—All Hail!

Eve.
God! who didst name the day, and separate
Morning from night, till then divided never—
Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call
Part of thy work the firmament—All Hail!

Abel.
God! who didst call the elements into
Earth, ocean, air and fire—and with the day
And night, and worlds which these illuminate,
Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them,
And love both them and thee—All Hail! All Hail!

Adah.
God! the Eternal parent of all things!
Who didst create these best and beauteous beings,
To be belovéd, more than all, save thee—
Let me love thee and them:—All Hail! All Hail!

Zillah.
Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all,
Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in,
And drive my father forth from Paradise,
Keep us from further evil:—Hail! All Hail!

Adam.
Son Cain! my first-born—wherefore art thou silent?

Cain.
Why should I speak?

Adam.
To pray.

Cain.
Have ye not prayed?

Adam.
We have, most fervently.

Cain.
And loudly: I
Have heard you.

Adam.
So will God, I trust.

Abel.
Amen!

Adam.
But thou my eldest born? art silent still?

Cain.
'Tis better I should be so.

Adam.
Wherefore so?

Cain.
I have nought to ask.

Adam.
Nor aught to thank for?

Cain.
No.

Adam.
Dost thou not live?

Cain.
Must I not die?

Eve.
Alas!
The fruit of our forbidden tree begins
To fall.

Adam.
And we must gather it again.
Oh God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?

Cain.
And wherefore plucked ye not the tree of life?
Ye might have then defied him.

Adam.
Oh! my son,
Blaspheme not: these are Serpent's words.

Cain.
Why not?
The snake spoke truth; it was the Tree of Knowledge;
It was the Tree of Life: knowledge is good,
And Life is good; and how can both be evil?

Eve.
My boy! thou speakest as I spoke in sin,
Before thy birth: let me not see renewed
My misery in thine. I have repented.
Let me not see my offspring fall into
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise,
Which even in Paradise destroyed his parents.
Content thee with what is. Had we been so,
Thou now hadst been contented.—Oh, my son!

Adam.
Our orisons completed, let us hence,
Each to his task of toil—not heavy, though
Needful: the earth is young, and yields us kindly
Her fruits with little labour.

Eve.
Cain—my son—
Behold thy father cheerful and resigned—
And do as he doth.

[Exeunt Adam and Eve.
Zillah.
Wilt thou not, my brother?

Abel.
Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy brow,
Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse
The Eternal anger?

Adah.
My belovéd Cain
Wilt thou frown even on me?

Cain.
No, Adah! no;
I fain would be alone a little while.
Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass;
Precede me, brother—I will follow shortly.
And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind;
Your gentleness must not be harshly met:
I'll follow you anon.

Adah.
If not, I will
Return to seek you here.

Abel.
The peace of God
Be on your spirit, brother!

[Exeunt Abel, Zillah, and Adah.
Cain
(solus).
And this is
Life?—Toil! and wherefore should I toil?—because
My father could not keep his place in Eden?
What had I done in this?—I was unborn:
I sought not to be born; nor love the state
To which that birth has brought me. Why did he
Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or
Yielding—why suffer? What was there in this?
The tree was planted, and why not for him?
If not, why place him near it, where it grew
The fairest in the centre? They have but
One answer to all questions, “'Twas his will,
And he is good.” How know I that? Because
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?
I judge but by the fruits—and they are bitter—
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
Whom have we here?—A shape like to the angels
Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect
Of spiritual essence: why do I quake?
Why should I fear him more than other spirits,
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords
Before the gates round which I linger oft,
In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those
Gardens which are my just inheritance,
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls
And the immortal trees which overtop
The Cherubim-defended battlements?
If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels,
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet—he seems mightier far than them, nor less
Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful
As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems
Half of his immortality. And is it
So? and can aught grieve save Humanity?
He cometh.

Enter Lucifer.
Lucifer.
Mortal!

Cain.
Spirit, who art thou?

Lucifer.
Master of spirits.

Cain.
And being so, canst thou
Leave them, and walk with dust?

Lucifer.
I know the thoughts
Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.

Cain.
How!
You know my thoughts?

Lucifer.
They are the thoughts of all
Worthy of thought;—'tis your immortal part
Which speaks within you.

Cain.
What immortal part?
This has not been revealed: the Tree of Life
Was withheld from us by my father's folly,
While that of Knowledge, by my mother's haste,
Was plucked too soon; and all the fruit is Death!

Lucifer.
They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.

Cain.
I live,
But live to die; and, living, see no thing
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome, and yet all invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome—
And so I live. Would I had never lived!

Lucifer.
Thou livest—and must live for ever. Think not
The Earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is
Existence—it will cease—and thou wilt be—
No less than thou art now.

Cain.
No less! and why
No more?

Lucifer.
It may be thou shalt be as we.

Cain.
And ye?

Lucifer.
Are everlasting.

Cain.
Are ye happy?

Lucifer.
We are mighty.

Cain.
Are ye happy?

Lucifer.
No: art thou?

Cain.
How should I be so? Look on me!

Lucifer.
Poor clay!
And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!

Cain.
I am:—and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?

Lucifer.
One who aspired to be what made thee, and
Would not have made thee what thou art.

Cain.
Ah!
Thou look'st almost a god; and—

Lucifer.
I am none:
And having failed to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquered; let him reign!

Cain.
Who?

Lucifer.
Thy Sire's maker—and the Earth's.

Cain.
And Heaven's,
And all that in them is. So I have heard
His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith.

Lucifer.
They say—what they must sing and say, on pain
Of being that which I am,—and thou art—
Of spirits and of men.

Cain.
And what is that?

Lucifer.
Souls who dare use their immortality—
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good! If he has made,
As he saith—which I know not, nor believe—
But, if he made us—he cannot unmake:
We are immortal!—nay, he'd have us so,
That he may torture:—let him! He is great—
But, in his greatness, is no happier than
We in our conflict! Goodness would not make
Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him
Sit on his vast and solitary throne—
Creating worlds, to make eternity
Less burthensome to his immense existence
And unparticipated solitude;
Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone
Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant;
Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon
He ever granted: but let him reign on!
And multiply himself in misery!
Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise—
And, suffering in concert, make our pangs
Innumerable, more endurable,
By the unbounded sympathy of all
With all! But He! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create—perhaps he'll make
One day a Son unto himself—as he
Gave you a father—and if he so doth,
Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!

Cain.
Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum
In visions through my thought: I never could
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard.
My father and my mother talk to me
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see
The gates of what they call their Paradise
Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim,
Which shut them out—and me: I feel the weight
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look
Around a world where I seem nothing, with
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they
Could master all things—but I thought alone
This misery was mine. My father is
Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is
A watching shepherd boy, who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn
Than the birds' matins; and my Adah—my
Own and belovéd—she, too, understands not
The mind which overwhelms me: never till
Now met I aught to sympathise with me.
'Tis well—I rather would consort with spirits.

Lucifer.
And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul
For such companionship, I would not now
Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent
Had been enough to charm ye, as before.

Cain.
Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?

Lucifer.
I tempt none,
Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree
Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life
Still fruitful? Did I bid her pluck them not?
Did I plant things prohibited within
The reach of beings innocent, and curious
By their own innocence? I would have made ye
Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye
Because “ye should not eat the fruits of life,
“And become gods as we.” Were those his words?

Cain.
They were, as I have heard from those who heard them,
In thunder.

Lucifer.
Then who was the Demon? He
Who would not let ye live, or he who would
Have made ye live for ever, in the joy
And power of Knowledge?

Cain.
Would they had snatched both
The fruits, or neither!

Lucifer.
One is yours already,
The other may be still.

Cain.
How so?

Lucifer.
By being
Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can
Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself
And centre of surrounding things—'tis made
To sway.

Cain.
But didst thou tempt my parents?

Lucifer.
I?
Poor clay—what should I tempt them for, or how?

Cain.
They say the Serpent was a spirit.

Lucifer.
Who
Saith that? It is not written so on high:
The proud One will not so far falsify,
Though man's vast fears and little vanity
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature
His own low failing. The snake was the snake—
No more; and yet not less than those he tempted,
In nature being earth also—more in wisdom,
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys.
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?

Cain.
But the thing had a demon?

Lucifer.
He but woke one
In those he spake to with his forky tongue.
I tell thee that the Serpent was no more
Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim
Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages
Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's,
The seed of the then world may thus array
Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute
To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all
That bows to him, who made things but to bend
Before his sullen, sole eternity;
But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy
Fond parents listened to a creeping thing,
And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What
Was there to envy in the narrow bounds
Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade
Space—but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not,
With all thy Tree of Knowledge.

Cain.
But thou canst not
Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know,
And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind
To know.

Lucifer.
And heart to look on?

Cain.
Be it proved.

Lucifer.
Darest thou look on Death?

Cain.
He has not yet
Been seen.

Lucifer.
But must be undergone.

Cain.
My father
Says he is something dreadful, and my mother
Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes
To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth,
And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me,
And speaks not.

Lucifer.
And thou?

Cain.
Thoughts unspeakable
Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems,
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him?
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy,
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.

Lucifer.
It has no shape; but will absorb all things
That bear the form of earth-born being.

Cain.
Ah!
I thought it was a being: who could do
Such evil things to beings save a being?

Lucifer.
Ask the Destroyer.

Cain.
Who?

Lucifer.
The Maker—Call him
Which name thou wilt: he makes but to destroy.

Cain.
I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard
Of Death: although I know not what it is—
Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out
In the vast desolate night in search of him;
And when I saw gigantic shadows in
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered
By the far-flashing of the Cherubs' swords,
I watched for what I thought his coming; for
With fear rose longing in my heart to know
What 'twas which shook us all—but nothing came.
And then I turned my weary eyes from off
Our native and forbidden Paradise,
Up to the lights above us, in the azure,
Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?

Lucifer.
Perhaps—but long outlive both thine and thee.

Cain.
I'm glad of that: I would not have them die—
They are so lovely. What is Death? I fear,
I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what,
I cannot compass: 'tis denounced against us,
Both them who sinned and sinned not, as an ill—
What ill?

Lucifer.
To be resolved into the earth.

Cain.
But shall I know it?

Lucifer.
As I know not death,
I cannot answer.

Cain.
Were I quiet earth,
That were no evil: would I ne'er had been
Aught else but dust!

Lucifer.
That is a grovelling wish,
Less than thy father's—for he wished to know!

Cain.
But not to live—or wherefore plucked he not
The Life-tree?

Lucifer.
He was hindered.

Cain.
Deadly error!
Not to snatch first that fruit:—but ere he plucked
The knowledge, he was ignorant of Death.
Alas! I scarcely now know what it is,
And yet I fear it—fear I know not what!

Lucifer.
And I, who know all things, fear nothing; see
What is true knowledge.

Cain.
Wilt thou teach me all?

Lucifer.
Aye, upon one condition.

Cain.
Name it.

Lucifer.
That
Thou dost fall down and worship me—thy Lord.

Cain.
Thou art not the Lord my father worships.

Lucifer.
No.

Cain.
His equal?

Lucifer.
No;—I have nought in common with him!
Nor would: I would be aught above—beneath—
Aught save a sharer or a servant of
His power. I dwell apart; but I am great:—
Many there are who worship me, and more
Who shall—be thou amongst the first.

Cain.
I never
As yet have bowed unto my father's God.
Although my brother Abel oft implores
That I would join with him in sacrifice:—
Why should I bow to thee?

Lucifer.
Hast thou ne'er bowed
To him?

Cain.
Have I not said it?—need I say it?
Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that?

Lucifer.
He who bows not to him has bowed to me.

Cain.
But I will bend to neither.

Lucifer.
Ne'er the less,
Thou art my worshipper; not worshipping
Him makes thee mine the same.

Cain.
And what is that?

Lucifer.
Thou'lt know here—and hereafter.

Cain.
Let me but
Be taught the mystery of my being.

Lucifer.
Follow
Where I will lead thee.

Cain.
But I must retire
To till the earth—for I had promised—

Lucifer.
What?

Cain.
To cull some first-fruits.

Lucifer.
Why?

Cain.
To offer up
With Abel on an altar.

Lucifer.
Said'st thou not
Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made thee?

Cain.
Yes—
But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought upon me;
The offering is more his than mine—and Adah—

Lucifer.
Why dost thou hesitate?

Cain.
She is my sister,
Born on the same day, of the same womb; and
She wrung from me, with tears, this promise; and
Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks,
Bear all—and worship aught.

Lucifer.
Then follow me!

Cain.
I will.

Enter Adah.
Adah.
My brother, I have come for thee;
It is our hour of rest and joy—and we
Have less without thee. Thou hast laboured not
This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits
Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens:
Come away.

Cain.
Seest thou not?

Adah.
I see an angel;
We have seen many: will he share our hour
Of rest?—he is welcome.

Cain.
But he is not like
The angels we have seen.

Adah.
Are there, then, others?
But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned
To be our guests—will he?

Cain
(to Lucifer).
Wilt thou?

Lucifer.
I ask
Thee to be mine.

Cain.
I must away with him.

Adah.
And leave us?

Cain.
Aye.

Adah.
And me?

Cain.
Belovéd Adah!

Adah.
Let me go with thee.

Lucifer.
No, she must not.

Adah.
Who
Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?

Cain.
He is a God.

Adah.
How know'st thou?

Cain.
He speaks like A God.

Adah.
So did the Serpent, and it lied.

Lucifer.
Thou errest, Adah!—was not the Tree that
Of Knowledge?

Adah.
Aye—to our eternal sorrow.

Lucifer.
And yet that grief is knowledge—so he lied not:
And if he did betray you, 'twas with Truth;
And Truth in its own essence cannot be
But good.

Adah.
But all we know of it has gathered
Evil on ill; expulsion from our home,
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness;
Remorse of that which was—and hope of that
Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me—I
Love thee.

Lucifer.
More than thy mother, and thy sire?

Adah.
I do. Is that a sin, too?

Lucifer.
No, not yet;
It one day will be in your children.

Adah.
What!
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?

Lucifer.
Not as thou lovest Cain.

Adah.
Oh, my God!
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love
Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk
Out of this bosom? was not he, their father,
Born of the same sole womb, in the same hour
With me? did we not love each other? and
In multiplying our being multiply
Things which will love each other as we love
Them?—And as I love thee, my Cain! go not
Forth with this spirit; he is not of ours.

Lucifer.
The sin I speak of is not of my making,
And cannot be a sin in you—whate'er
It seem in those who will replace ye in
Mortality.

Adah.
What is the sin which is not
Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin
Or virtue?—if it doth, we are the slaves
Of—

Lucifer.
Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher
Than them or ye would be so, did they not
Prefer an independency of torture
To the smooth agonies of adulation,
In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers,
To that which is omnipotent, because
It is omnipotent, and not from love,
But terror and self-hope.

Adah.
Omnipotence
Must be all goodness.

Lucifer.
Was it so in Eden?

Adah.
Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer
Than was the Serpent, and as false.

Lucifer.
As true.
Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge
Of good and evil?

Adah.
Oh, my mother! thou
Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast passed
Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent
And happy intercourse with happy spirits:
But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden,
Are girt about by demons, who assume
The words of God, and tempt us with our own
Dissatisfied and curious thoughts—as thou
Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed
And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss.
I cannot answer this immortal thing
Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him;
I look upon him with a pleasing fear,
And yet I fly not from him: in his eye
There is a fastening attraction which
Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart
Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near,
Nearer and nearer:—Cain—Cain—save me from him!

Cain.
What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.

Adah.
He is not God—nor God's: I have beheld
The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he looks not
Like them.

Cain.
But there are spirits loftier still—
The archangels.

Lucifer.
And still loftier than the archangels.

Adah.
Aye—but not blesséd.

Lucifer.
If the blessedness
Consists in slavery—no.

Adah.
I have heard it said,
The Seraphs love most—Cherubim know most—
And this should be a Cherub—since he loves not.

Lucifer.
And if the higher knowledge quenches love,
What must he be you cannot love when known?
Since the all-knowing Cherubim love least,
The Seraphs' love can be but ignorance:
That they are not compatible, the doom
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves.
Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge—since there is
No other choice: your sire hath chosen already:
His worship is but fear.

Adah.
Oh, Cain! choose Love.

Cain.
For thee, my Adah, I choose not—It was
Born with me—but I love nought else.

Adah.
Our parents?

Cain.
Did they love us when they snatched from the Tree
That which hath driven us all from Paradise?

Adah.
We were not born then—and if we had been,
Should we not love them—and our children, Cain?

Cain.
My little Enoch! and his lisping sister!
Could I but deem them happy, I would half
Forget—but it can never be forgotten
Through thrice a thousand generations! never
Shall men love the remembrance of the man
Who sowed the seed of evil and mankind
In the same hour! They plucked the tree of science
And sin—and, not content with their own sorrow,
Begot me—thee—and all the few that are,
And all the unnumbered and innumerable
Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be,
To inherit agonies accumulated
By ages!—and I must be sire of such things!
Thy beauty and thy love—my love and joy,
The rapturous moment and the placid hour,
All we love in our children and each other,
But lead them and ourselves through many years
Of sin and pain—or few, but still of sorrow,
Interchecked with an instant of brief pleasure,
To Death—the unknown! Methinks the Tree of Knowledge
Hath not fulfilled its promise:—if they sinned,
At least they ought to have known all things that are
Of knowledge—and the mystery of Death.
What do they know?—that they are miserable.
What need of snakes and fruits to teach us that?

Adah.
I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou
Wert happy—

Cain.
Be thou happy, then, alone—
I will have nought to do with happiness,
Which humbles me and mine.

Adah.
Alone I could not,
Nor would be happy; but with those around us
I think I could be so, despite of Death,
Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though
It seems an awful shadow—if I may
Judge from what I have heard.

Lucifer.
And thou couldst not
Alone, thou say'st, be happy?

Adah.
Alone! Oh, my God!
Who could be happy and alone, or good?
To me my solitude seems sin; unless
When I think how soon I shall see my brother,
His brother, and our children, and our parents.

Lucifer.
Yet thy God is alone; and is he happy?
Lonely, and good?

Adah.
He is not so; he hath
The angels and the mortals to make happy,
And thus becomes so in diffusing joy.
What else can joy be, but the spreading joy?

Lucifer.
Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from Eden;
Or of his first-born son: ask your own heart;
It is not tranquil.

Adah.
Alas! no! and you—
Are you of Heaven?

Lucifer.
If I am not, enquire
The cause of this all-spreading happiness
(Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good
Maker of life and living things; it is
His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear,
And some of us resist—and both in vain,
His Seraphs say: but it is worth the trial,
Since better may not be without: there is
A wisdom in the spirit, which directs
To right, as in the dim blue air the eye
Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon
The star which watches, welcoming the morn.

Adah.
It is a beautiful star; I love it for Its beauty.

Lucifer.
And why not adore?

Adah.
Our father
Adores the Invisible only.

Lucifer.
But the symbols
Of the Invisible are the loveliest
Of what is visible; and yon bright star
Is leader of the host of Heaven.

Adah.
Our father
Saith that he has beheld the God himself
Who made him and our mother.

Lucifer.
Hast thou seen him?

Adah.
Yes—in his works.

Lucifer.
But in his being?

Adah.
No—
Save in my father, who is God's own image;
Or in his angels, who are like to thee—
And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful
In seeming: as the silent sunny noon,
All light, they look upon us; but thou seem'st
Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds
Streak the deep purple, and unnumbered stars
Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault
With things that look as if they would be suns;
So beautiful, unnumbered, and endearing,
Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them,
They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou.
Thou seem'st unhappy: do not make us so,
And I will weep for thee.

Lucifer.
Alas! those tears!
Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed—

Adah.
By me?

Lucifer.
By all.

Adah.
What all?

Lucifer.
The million millions—
The myriad myriads—the all-peopled earth—
The unpeopled earth—and the o'er-peopled Hell,
Of which thy bosom is the germ.

Adah.
O Cain!
This spirit curseth us.

Cain.
Let him say on;
Him will I follow.

Adah.
Whither?

Lucifer.
To a place
Whence he shall come back to thee in an hour;
But in that hour see things of many days.

Adah.
How can that be?

Lucifer.
Did not your Maker make
Out of old worlds this new one in few days?
And cannot I, who aided in this work,
Show in an hour what he hath made in many,
Or hath destroyed in few?

Cain.
Lead on.

Adah.
Will he,
In sooth, return within an hour?

Lucifer.
He shall.
With us acts are exempt from time, and we
Can crowd eternity into an hour,
Or stretch an hour into eternity:
We breathe not by a mortal measurement—
But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with me.

Adah.
Will he return?

Lucifer.
Aye, woman! he alone
Of mortals from that place (the first and last
Who shall return, save One), shall come back to thee,
To make that silent and expectant world
As populous as this: at present there
Are few inhabitants.

Adah.
Where dwellest thou?

Lucifer.
Throughout all space. Where should I dwell? Where are
Thy God or Gods—there am I: all things are
Divided with me: Life and Death—and Time—
Eternity—and heaven and earth—and that
Which is not heaven nor earth, but peopled with
Those who once peopled or shall people both—
These are my realms! so that I do divide
His, and possess a kingdom which is not
His. If I were not that which I have said,
Could I stand here? His angels are within
Your vision.

Adah.
So they were when the fair Serpent
Spoke with our mother first.

Lucifer.
Cain! thou hast heard.
If thou dost long for knowledge, I can satiate
That thirst; nor ask thee to partake of fruits
Which shall deprive thee of a single good
The Conqueror has left thee. Follow me.

Cain.
Spirit, I have said it.

[Exeunt Lucifer and Cain.
Adah
(follows exclaiming).
Cain! my brother! Cain!

ACT II.

Scene I.

—The Abyss of Space.
Cain.
I tread on air, and sink not—yet I fear
To sink.

Lucifer.
Have faith in me, and thou shalt be
Borne on the air, of which I am the Prince.

Cain.
Can I do so without impiety?

Lucifer.
Believe—and sink not! doubt—and perish! thus
Would run the edict of the other God,
Who names me Demon to his angels; they
Echo the sound to miserable things,
Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses,
Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem
Evil or good what is proclaimed to them
In their abasement. I will have none such:
Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold
The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be
Amerced for doubts beyond thy little life,
With torture of my dooming. There will come
An hour, when, tossed upon some water-drops,
A man shall say to a man, “Believe in me,
And walk the waters;” and the man shall walk
The billows and be safe. I will not say,
Believe in me, as a conditional creed
To save thee; but fly with me o'er the gulf
Of space an equal flight, and I will show
What thou dar'st not deny,—the history
Of past—and present, and of future worlds.

Cain.
Oh God! or Demon! or whate'er thou art,
Is yon our earth?

Lucifer.
Dost thou not recognise
The dust which formed your father?

Cain.
Can it be?
Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether,
With an inferior circlet purpler it still,
Which looks like that which lit our earthly night?
Is this our Paradise? Where are its walls,
And they who guard them?

Lucifer.
Point me out the site
Of Paradise.

Cain.
How should I? As we move
Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller,
And as it waxes little, and then less,
Gathers a halo round it, like the light
Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I
Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise:
Methinks they both, as we recede from them,
Appear to join the innumerable stars
Which are around us; and, as we move on,
Increase their myriads.

Lucifer.
And if there should be
Worlds greater than thine own—inhabited
By greater things—and they themselves far more
In number than the dust of thy dull earth,
Though multiplied to animated atoms,
All living—and all doomed to death—and wretched,
What wouldst thou think?

Cain.
I should be proud of thought
Which knew such things.

Lucifer.
But if that high thought were
Linked to a servile mass of matter—and,
Knowing such things, aspiring to such things,
And science still beyond them, were chained down
To the most gross and petty paltry wants,
All foul and fulsome—and the very best
Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation,
A most enervating and filthy cheat
To lure thee on to the renewal of
Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoomed to be
As frail, and few so happy—

Cain.
Spirit! I
Know nought of Death, save as a dreadful thing
Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of
A hideous heritage I owe to them
No less than life—a heritage not happy,
If I may judge, till now. But, Spirit! if
It be as thou hast said (and I within
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth),
Here let me die: for to give birth to those
Who can but suffer many years, and die—
Methinks is merely propagating Death,
And multiplying murder.

Lucifer.
Thou canst not
All die—there is what must survive.

Cain.
The Other
Spake not of this unto my father, when
He shut him forth from Paradise, with death
Written upon his forehead. But at least
Let what is mortal of me perish, that
I may be in the rest as angels are.

Lucifer.
I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am?

Cain.
I know not what thou art: I see thy power,
And see thou show'st me things beyond my power,
Beyond all power of my born faculties,
Although inferior still to my desires
And my conceptions.

Lucifer.
What are they which dwell
So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn
With worms in clay?

Cain.
And what art thou who dwells
So haughtily in spirit, and canst range
Nature and immortality—and yet
Seem'st sorrowful?

Lucifer.
I seem that which I am;
And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou
Wouldst be immortal?

Cain.
Thou hast said, I must be
Immortal in despite of me. I knew not
This until lately—but since it must be,
Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn
To anticipate my immortality.

Lucifer.
Thou didst before I came upon thee.

Cain.
How?

Lucifer.
By suffering.

Cain.
And must torture be immortal?

Lucifer.
We and thy sons will try. But now, behold!
Is it not glorious?

Cain.
Oh thou beautiful
And unimaginable ether! and
Ye multiplying masses of increased
And still-increasing lights! what are ye? what
Is this blue wilderness of interminable
Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen
The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden?
Is your course measured for ye? Or do ye
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry
Through an aërial universe of endless
Expansion—at which my soul aches to think—
Intoxicated with eternity?
Oh God! Oh Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are!
How beautiful ye are! how beautiful
Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er
They may be! Let me die, as atoms die,
(If that they die), or know ye in your might
And knowledge! My thoughts are not in this hour
Unworthy what I see, though my dust is;
Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer.

Lucifer.
Art thou not nearer? look back to thine earth!

Cain.
Where is it? I see nothing save a mass
Of most innumerable lights.

Lucifer.
Look there!

Cain.
I cannot see it.

Lucifer.
Yet it sparkles still.

Cain.
That!—yonder!

Lucifer.
Yea.

Cain.
And wilt thou tell me so?
Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world
Which bears them.

Lucifer.
Thou hast seen both worms and worlds,
Each bright and sparkling—what dost think of them?

Cain.
That they are beautiful in their own sphere,
And that the night, which makes both beautiful,
The little shining fire-fly in its flight,
And the immortal star in its great course,
Must both be guided.

Lucifer.
But by whom or what?

Cain.
Show me.

Lucifer.
Dar'st thou behold?

Cain.
How know I what
I dare behold? As yet, thou hast shown nought
I dare not gaze on further.

Lucifer.
On, then, with me.
Wouldst thou behold things mortal or immortal?

Cain.
Why, what are things?

Lucifer.
Both partly: but what doth
Sit next thy heart?

Cain.
The things I see.

Lucifer.
But what
Sate nearest it?

Cain.
The things I have not seen,
Nor ever shall—the mysteries of Death.

Lucifer.
What, if I show to thee things which have died,
As I have shown thee much which cannot die?

Cain.
Do so.

Lucifer.
Away, then! on our mighty wings!

Cain.
Oh! how we cleave the blue! The stars fade from us!
The earth! where is my earth? Let me look on it,
For I was made of it.

Lucifer.
'Tis now beyond thee,
Less, in the universe, than thou in it;
Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; thou
Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust:
'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine.

Cain.
Where dost thou lead me?

Lucifer.
To what was before thee!
The phantasm of the world; of which thy world
Is but the wreck.

Cain.
What! is it not then new?

Lucifer.
No more than life is; and that was ere thou
Or I were, or the things which seem to us
Greater than either: many things will have
No end; and some, which would pretend to have
Had no beginning, have had one as mean
As thou; and mightier things have been extinct
To make way for much meaner than we can
Surmise; for moments only and the space
Have been and must be all unchangeable.
But changes make not death, except to clay;
But thou art clay—and canst but comprehend
That which was clay, and such thou shalt behold.

Cain.
Clay—Spirit—what thou wilt—I can survey.

Lucifer.
Away, then!

Cain.
But the lights fade from me fast,
And some till now grew larger as we approached,
And wore the look of worlds.

Lucifer.
And such they are.

Cain.
And Edens in them?

Lucifer.
It may be.

Cain.
And men?

Lucifer.
Yea, or things higher.

Cain.
Aye! and serpents too?

Lucifer.
Wouldst thou have men without them? must no reptiles
Breathe, save the erect ones?

Cain.
How the lights recede!
Where fly we?

Lucifer.
To the world of phantoms, which
Are beings past, and shadows still to come.

Cain.
But it grows dark, and dark—the stars are gone!

Lucifer.
And yet thou seest.

Cain.
'Tis a fearful light!
No sun—no moon—no lights innumerable—
The very blue of the empurpled night
Fades to a dreary twilight—yet I see
Huge dusky masses; but unlike the worlds
We were approaching, which, begirt with light,
Seemed full of life even when their atmosphere
Of light gave way, and showed them taking shapes
Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains;
And some emitting sparks, and some displaying
Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt
With luminous belts, and floating moons, which took,
Like them, the features of fair earth:—instead,
All here seems dark and dreadful.

Lucifer.
But distinct.
Thou seekest to behold Death, and dead things?

Cain.
I seek it not; but as I know there are
Such, and that my sire's sin makes him and me,
And all that we inherit, liable
To such, I would behold, at once, what I
Must one day see perforce.

Lucifer.
Behold!

Cain.
'Tis darkness!

Lucifer.
And so it shall be ever—but we will
Unfold its gates!

Cain.
Enormous vapours roll
Apart—what's this?

Lucifer.
Enter!

Cain.
Can I return?

Lucifer.
Return! be sure: how else should Death be peopled?
Its present realm is thin to what it will be,
Through thee and thine.

Cain.
The clouds still open wide
And wider, and make widening circles round us!

Lucifer.
Advance!

Cain.
And thou!

Lucifer.
Fear not—without me thou
Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on!

[They disappear through the clouds.

Scene II.

—Hades.
Enter Lucifer and Cain.
Cain.
How silent and how vast are these dim worlds!
For they seem more than one, and yet more peopled
Than the huge brilliant luminous orbs which swung
So thickly in the upper air, that I
Had deemed them rather the bright populace
Of some all unimaginable Heaven,
Than things to be inhabited themselves,
But that on drawing near them I beheld
Their swelling into palpable immensity
Of matter, which seemed made for life to dwell on,
Rather than life itself. But here, all is
So shadowy, and so full of twilight, that
It speaks of a day past.

Lucifer.
It is the realm
Of Death.—Wouldst have it present?

Cain.
Till I know
That which it really is, I cannot answer.
But if it be as I have heard my father
Deal out in his long homilies, 'tis a thing—
Oh God! I dare not think on't! Curséd be
He who invented Life that leads to Death!
Or the dull mass of life, that, being life,
Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it—
Even for the innocent!

Lucifer.
Dost thou curse thy father?

Cain.
Cursed he not me in giving me my birth?
Cursed he not me before my birth, in daring
To pluck the fruit forbidden?

Lucifer.
Thou say'st well:
The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee—
But for thy sons and brother?

Cain.
Let them share it
With me, their sire and brother! What else is
Bequeathed to me? I leave them my inheritance!
Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms
Of swimming shadows and enormous shapes,
Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all
Mighty and melancholy—what are ye?
Live ye, or have ye lived?

Lucifer.
Somewhat of both.

Cain.
Then what is Death?

Lucifer.
What? Hath not he who made ye
Said 'tis another life?

Cain.
Till now he hath
Said nothing, save that all shall die.

Lucifer.
Perhaps
He one day will unfold that further secret.

Cain.
Happy the day!

Lucifer.
Yes; happy! when unfolded,
Through agonies unspeakable, and clogged
With agonies eternal, to innumerable
Yet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms,
All to be animated for this only!

Cain.
What are these mighty phantoms which I see
Floating around me?—They wear not the form
Of the Intelligences I have seen
Round our regretted and unentered Eden;
Nor wear the form of man as I have viewed it
In Adam's and in Abel's, and in mine,
Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in my children's:
And yet they have an aspect, which, though not
Of men nor angels, looks like something, which,
If not the last, rose higher than the first,
Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and full
Of seeming strength, but of inexplicable
Shape; for I never saw such. They bear not
The wing of Seraph, nor the face of man,
Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that is
Now breathing; mighty yet and beautiful
As the most beautiful and mighty which
Live, and yet so unlike them, that I scarce
Can call them living.

Lucifer.
Yet they lived.

Cain.
Where?

Lucifer.
Where
Thou livest.

Cain.
When?

Lucifer.
On what thou callest earth
They did inhabit.

Cain.
Adam is the first.

Lucifer.
Of thine, I grant thee-but too mean to be
The last of these.

Cain.
And what are they?

Lucifer.
That which
Thou shalt be.

Cain.
But what were they?

Lucifer.
Living, high,
Intelligent, good, great, and glorious things,
As much superior unto all thy sire
Adam could e'er have been in Eden, as
The sixty-thousandth generation shall be,
In its dull damp degeneracy, to
Thee and thy son;—and how weak they are, judge
By thy own flesh.

Cain.
Ah me! and did they perish?

Lucifer.
Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade from thine.

Cain.
But was mine theirs?

Lucifer.
It was.

Cain.
But not as now.
It is too little and too lowly to
Sustain such creatures.

Lucifer.
True, it was more glorious.

Cain.
And wherefore did it fall?

Lucifer.
Ask him who fells.

Cain.
But how?

Lucifer.
By a most crushing and inexorable
Destruction and disorder of the elements,
Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos
Subsiding has struck out a world: such things,
Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity.—
Pass on, and gaze upon the past.

Cain.
'Tis awful!

Lucifer.
And true. Behold these phantoms! they were once
Material as thou art.

Cain.
And must I be
Like them?

Lucifer.
Let He who made thee answer that.
I show thee what thy predecessors are,
And what they were thou feelest, in degree
Inferior as thy petty feelings and
Thy pettier portion of the immortal part
Of high intelligence and earthly strength.
What ye in common have with what they had
Is Life, and what ye shall have—Death: the rest
Of your poor attributes is such as suits
Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding
Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into
A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with
Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness—
A Paradise of Ignorance, from which
Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold
What these superior beings are or were;
Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till
The earth, thy task—I'll waft thee there in safety.

Cain.
No: I'll stay here.

Lucifer.
How long?

Cain.
For ever! Since
I must one day return here from the earth,
I rather would remain; I am sick of all
That dust has shown me—let me dwell in shadows.

Lucifer.
It cannot be: thou now beholdest as
A vision that which is reality.
To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thou
Must pass through what the things thou seest have passed—
The gates of Death.

Cain.
By what gate have we entered
Even now?

Lucifer.
By mine! But, plighted to return,
My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regions
Where all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on;
But do not think to dwell here till thine hour
Is come!

Cain.
And these, too—can they ne'er repass
To earth again?

Lucifer.
Their earth is gone for ever—
So changed by its convulsion, they would not
Be conscious to a single present spot
Of its new scarcely hardened surface—'twas—
Oh, what a beautiful world it was!

Cain.
And is!
It is not with the earth, though I must till it,
I feel at war—but that I may not profit
By what it bears of beautiful, untoiling,
Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts
With knowledge, nor allay my thousand fears
Of Death and Life.

Lucifer.
What thy world is, thou see'st,
But canst not comprehend the shadow of
That which it was.

Cain.
And those enormous creatures,
Phantoms inferior in intelligence
(At least so seeming) to the things we have passed,
Resembling somewhat the wild habitants
Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest which
Roar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold
In magnitude and terror; taller than
The cherub-guarded walls of Eden—with
Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them—
And tusks projecting like the trees stripped of
Their bark and branches—what were they?

Lucifer.
That which
The Mammoth is in thy world;—but these lie
By myriads underneath its surface.

Cain.
But
None on it?

Lucifer.
No: for thy frail race to war
With them would render the curse on it useless—
'Twould be destroyed so early.

Cain.
But why war?

Lucifer.
You have forgotten the denunciation
Which drove your race from Eden—war with all things,
And death to all things, and disease to most things,
And pangs, and bitterness; these were the fruits
Of the forbidden tree.

Cain.
But animals—
Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die?

Lucifer.
Your Maker told ye, they were made for you,
As you for him.—You would not have their doom
Superior to your own? Had Adam not
Fallen, all had stood.

Cain.
Alas! the hopeless wretches!
They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons;
Like them, too, without having shared the apple;
Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge!
It was a lying tree—for we know nothing.
At least it promised knowledge at the price
Of death—but knowledge still: but what knows man?

Lucifer.
It may be death leads to the highest knowledge;
And being of all things the sole thing certain,
At least leads to the surest science: therefore
The Tree was true, though deadly.

Cain.
These dim realms!
I see them, but I know them not.

Lucifer.
Because
Thy hour is yet afar, and matter cannot
Comprehend spirit wholly—but 'tis something
To know there are such realms.

Cain.
We knew already
That there was Death.

Lucifer.
But not what was beyond it.

Cain.
Nor know I now.

Lucifer.
Thou knowest that there is
A state, and many states beyond thine own—
And this thou knewest not this morn.

Cain.
But all
Seems dim and shadowy.

Lucifer.
Be content; it will
Seem clearer to thine immortality.

Cain.
And yon immeasurable liquid space
Of glorious azure which floats on beyond us,
Which looks like water, and which I should deem
The river which flows out of Paradise
Past my own dwelling, but that it is bankless
And boundless, and of an ethereal hue—
What is it?

Lucifer.
There is still some such on earth,
Although inferior, and thy children shall
Dwell near it—'tis the phantasm of an Ocean.

Cain.
'Tis like another world; a liquid sun—
And those inordinate creatures sporting o'er
Its shining surface?

Lucifer.
Are its inhabitants,
The past Leviathans.

Cain.
And yon immense
Serpent, which rears his dripping mane and vasty
Head, ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar,
Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil
Himself around the orbs we lately looked on—
Is he not of the kind which basked beneath
The Tree in Eden?

Lucifer.
Eve, thy mother, best
Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her.

Cain.
This seems too terrible. No doubt the other
Had more of beauty.

Lucifer.
Hast thou ne'er beheld him?

Cain.
Many of the same kind (at least so called)
But never that precisely, which persuaded
The fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect.

Lucifer.
Your father saw him not?

Cain.
No: 'twas my mother
Who tempted him—she tempted by the serpent.

Lucifer.
Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy sons' wives,
Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange,
Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted them!

Cain.
Thy precept comes too late: there is no more
For serpents to tempt woman to.

Lucifer.
But there
Are some things still which woman may tempt man to,
And man tempt woman:—let thy sons look to it!
My counsel is a kind one; for 'tis even
Given chiefly at my own expense; 'tis true,
'Twill not be followed, so there's little lost.

Cain.
I understand not this.

Lucifer.
The happier thou!—
Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou thinkest
Thyself most wicked and unhappy—is it
Not so?

Cain.
For crime, I know not; but for pain,
I have felt much.

Lucifer.
First-born of the first man!
Thy present state of sin—and thou art evil,
Of sorrow—and thou sufferest, are both Eden
In all its innocence compared to what
Thou shortly may'st be; and that state again,
In its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise
To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulating
In generations like to dust (which they
In fact but add to), shall endure and do.—
Now let us back to earth!

Cain.
And wherefore didst thou
Lead me here only to inform me this?

Lucifer.
Was not thy quest for knowledge?

Cain.
Yes—as being
The road to happiness!

Lucifer.
If truth be so,
Thou hast it.

Cain.
Then my father's God did well
When he prohibited the fatal Tree.

Lucifer.
But had done better in not planting it.
But ignorance of evil doth not save
From evil; it must still roll on the same,
A part of all things.

Cain.
Not of all things. No—
I'll not believe it—for I thirst for good.

Lucifer.
And who and what doth not? Who covets evil
For its own bitter sake?—None—nothing! 'tis
The leaven of all life, and lifelessness.

Cain.
Within those glorious orbs which we behold,
Distant, and dazzling, and innumerable,
Ere we came down into this phantom realm,
Ill cannot come: they are too beautiful.

Lucifer.
Thou hast seen them from afar.

Cain.
And what of that?
Distance can but diminish glory—they,
When nearer, must be more ineffable.

Lucifer.
Approach the things of earth most beautiful,
And judge their beauty near.

Cain.
I have done this—
The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest.

Lucifer.
Then there must be delusion.—What is that
Which being nearest to thine eyes is still
More beautiful than beauteous things remote?

Cain.
My sister Adah.—All the stars of heaven,
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world—
The hues of twilight—the Sun's gorgeous coming—
His setting indescribable, which fills
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him
Along that western paradise of clouds—
The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice—
The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love,
And mingles with the song of Cherubim,
As the day closes over Eden's walls;—
All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart,
Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven
To gaze on it.

Lucifer.
'Tis fair as frail mortality,
In the first dawn and bloom of young creation,
And earliest embraces of earth's parents,
Can make its offspring; still it is delusion.

Cain.
You think so, being not her brother.

Lucifer.
Mortal!
My brotherhood's with those who have no children.

Cain.
Then thou canst have no fellowship with us.

Lucifer.
It may be that thine own shall be for me.
But if thou dost possess a beautiful
Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes,
Why art thou wretched?

Cain.
Why do I exist?
Why art thou wretched? why are all things so?
Ev'n he who made us must be, as the maker
Of things unhappy! To produce destruction
Can surely never be the task of joy,
And yet my sire says he's omnipotent:
Then why is Evil—he being Good? I asked
This question of my father; and he said,
Because this Evil only was the path
To Good. Strange Good, that must arise from out
Its deadly opposite. I lately saw
A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling
Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain
And piteous bleating of its restless dam;
My father plucked some herbs, and laid them to
The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch
Resumed its careless life, and rose to drain
The mother's milk, who o'er it tremulous
Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy.
Behold, my son! said Adam, how from Evil
Springs Good!

Lucifer.
What didst thou answer?

Cain.
Nothing; for
He is my father: but I thought, that 'twere
A better portion for the animal
Never to have been stung at all, than to
Purchase renewal of its little life
With agonies unutterable, though
Dispelled by antidotes.

Lucifer.
But as thou saidst
Of all belovéd things thou lovest her
Who shared thy mother's milk, and giveth hers
Unto thy children—

Cain.
Most assuredly:
What should I be without her?

Lucifer.
What am I?

Cain.
Dost thou love nothing?

Lucifer.
What does thy God love?

Cain.
All things, my father says; but I confess
I see it not in their allotment here.

Lucifer.
And, therefore, thou canst not see if I love
Or no—except some vast and general purpose,
To which particular things must melt like snows.

Cain.
Snows! what are they?

Lucifer.
Be happier in not knowing
What thy remoter offspring must encounter;
But bask beneath the clime which knows no winter.

Cain.
But dost thou not love something like thyself?

Lucifer.
And dost thou love thyself?

Cain.
Yes, but love more
What makes my feelings more endurable,
And is more than myself, because I love it!

Lucifer.
Thou lovest it, because 'tis beautiful,
As was the apple in thy mother's eye;
And when it ceases to be so, thy love
Will cease, like any other appetite.

Cain.
Cease to be beautiful! how can that be?

Lucifer.
With time.

Cain.
But time has passed, and hitherto
Even Adam and my mother both are fair:
Not fair like Adah and the Seraphim—
But very fair.

Lucifer.
All that must pass away
In them and her.

Cain.
I'm sorry for it; but
Cannot conceive my love for her the less:
And when her beauty disappears, methinks
He who creates all beauty will lose more
Than me in seeing perish such a work.

Lucifer.
I pity thee who lovest what must perish.

Cain.
And I thee who lov'st nothing.

Lucifer.
And thy brother—
Sits he not near thy heart?

Cain.
Why should he not?

Lucifer.
Thy father loves him well—so does thy God.

Cain.
And so do I.

Lucifer.
'Tis well and meekly done.

Cain.
Meekly!

Lucifer.
He is the second born of flesh,
And is his mother's favourite.

Cain.
Let him keep
Her favour, since the Serpent was the first
To win it.

Lucifer.
And his father's?

Cain.
What is that
To me? should I not love that which all love?

Lucifer.
And the Jehovah—the indulgent Lord,
And bounteous planter of barred Paradise—
He, too, looks smilingly on Abel.

Cain.
I
Ne'er saw him, and I know not if he smiles.

Lucifer.
But you have seen his angels.

Cain.
Rarely.

Lucifer.
But
Sufficiently to see they love your brother:
His sacrifices are acceptable.

Cain.
So be they! wherefore speak to me of this?

Lucifer.
Because thou hast thought of this ere now.

Cain.
And if
I have thought, why recall a thought that— (he pauses as agitated)
—Spirit!
Here we are in thy world; speak not of mine.
Thou hast shown me wonders: thou hast shown me those
Mighty Pre-Adamites who walked the earth
Of which ours is the wreck: thou hast pointed out
Myriads of starry worlds, of which our own
Is the dim and remote companion, in
Infinity of life: thou hast shown me shadows
Of that existence with the dreaded name
Which my sire brought us—Death; thou hast shown me much
But not all: show me where Jehovah dwells,
In his especial Paradise—or thine:
Where is it?

Lucifer.
Here, and o'er all space.

Cain.
But ye
Have some allotted dwelling—as all things;
Clay has its earth, and other worlds their tenants;
All temporary breathing creatures their
Peculiar element; and things which have
Long ceased to breathe our breath, have theirs, thou say'st;
And the Jehovah and thyself have thine—
Ye do not dwell together?

Lucifer.
No, we reign
Together; but our dwellings are asunder.

Cain.
Would there were only one of ye! perchance
An unity of purpose might make union
In elements which seem now jarred in storms.
How came ye, being Spirits wise and infinite,
To separate? Are ye not as brethren in
Your essence—and your nature, and your glory?

Lucifer.
Art not thou Abel's brother?

Cain.
We are brethren,
And so we shall remain; but were it not so,
Is spirit like to flesh? can it fall out—
Infinity with Immortality?
Jarring and turning space to misery—
For what?

Lucifer.
To reign.

Cain.
Did ye not tell me that
Ye are both eternal?

Lucifer.
Yea!

Cain.
And what I have seen—
Yon blue immensity, is boundless?

Lucifer.
Aye.

Cain.
And cannot ye both reign, then?—is there not
Enough?—why should ye differ?

Lucifer.
We both reign.

Cain.
But one of you makes evil.

Lucifer.
Which?

Cain.
Thou! for
If thou canst do man good, why dost thou not?

Lucifer.
And why not he who made? I made ye not;
Ye are his creatures, and not mine.

Cain.
Then leave us
His creatures, as thou say'st we are, or show me
Thy dwelling, or his dwelling.

Lucifer.
I could show thee
Both; but the time will come thou shalt see one
Of them for evermore.

Cain.
And why not now?

Lucifer.
Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to gather
The little I have shown thee into calm
And clear thought: and thou wouldst go on aspiring
To the great double Mysteries! the two Principles!
And gaze upon them on their secret thrones!
Dust! limit thy ambition; for to see
Either of these would be for thee to perish!

Cain.
And let me perish, so I see them!

Lucifer.
There
The son of her who snatched the apple spake!
But thou wouldst only perish, and not see them;
That sight is for the other state.

Cain.
Of Death?

Lucifer.
That is the prelude.

Cain.
Then I dread it less,
Now that I know it leads to something definite.

Lucifer.
And now I will convey thee to thy world,
Where thou shalt multiply the race of Adam,
Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep—and die!

Cain.
And to what end have I beheld these things
Which thou hast shown me?

Lucifer.
Didst thou not require
Knowledge? And have I not, in what I showed,
Taught thee to know thyself?

Cain.
Alas! I seem
Nothing.

Lucifer.
And this should be the human sum
Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness;
Bequeath that science to thy children, and
'Twill spare them many tortures.

Cain.
Haughty spirit!
Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, though proud,
Hast a superior.

Lucifer.
No! By heaven, which he
Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity
Of worlds and life, which I hold with him—No!
I have a Victor—true; but no superior.
Homage he has from all—but none from me:
I battle it against him, as I battled
In highest Heaven—through all Eternity,
And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades,
And the interminable realms of space,
And the infinity of endless ages,
All, all, will I dispute! And world by world,
And star by star, and universe by universe,
Shall tremble in the balance, till the great
Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease,
Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be quenched!
And what can quench our immortality,
Or mutual and irrevocable hate?
He as a conqueror will call the conquered
Evil; but what will be the Good he gives?
Were I the victor, his works would be deemed
The only evil ones. And you, ye new
And scarce-born mortals, what have been his gifts
To you already, in your little world?

Cain.
But few; and some of those but bitter.

Lucifer.
Back
With me, then, to thine earth, and try the rest
Of his celestial boons to you and yours.
Evil and Good are things in their own essence,
And not made good or evil by the Giver;
But if he gives you good—so call him; if
Evil springs from him, do not name it mine,
Till ye know better its true fount; and judge
Not by words, though of Spirits, but the fruits
Of your existence, such as it must be.
One good gift has the fatal apple given,—
Your reason:—let it not be overswayed
By tyrannous threats to force you into faith
'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling:
Think and endure,—and form an inner world
In your own bosom—where the outward fails;
So shall you nearer be the spiritual
Nature, and war triumphant with your own.

[They disappear.

ACT III.

Scene I.

—The Earth, near Eden, as in Act I.
Enter Cain and Adah.
Adah.
Hush! tread softly, Cain!

Cain.
I will—but wherefore?

Adah.
Our little Enoch sleeps upon yon bed
Of leaves, beneath the cypress.

Cain.
Cypress! 'tis
A gloomy tree, which looks as if it mourned
O'er what it shadows; wherefore didst thou choose it
For our child's canopy?

Adah.
Because its branches
Shut out the sun like night, and therefore seemed
Fitting to shadow slumber.

Cain.
Aye, the last—
And longest; but no matter—lead me to him.
[They go up to the child.
How lovely he appears! his little cheeks,
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn beneath them.

Adah.
And his lips, too,
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him, at least not now: he will awake soon—
His hour of mid-day rest is nearly over;
But it were pity to disturb him till
'Tis closed.

Cain.
You have said well; I will contain
My heart till then. He smiles, and sleeps!—sleep on,
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on, and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering
And innocent! thou hast not plucked the fruit—
Thou know'st not thou art naked! Must the time
Come thou shalt be amerced for sins unknown,
Which were not thine nor mine? But now sleep on!
His cheeks are reddening into deeper smiles,
And shining lids are trembling o'er his long
Lashes, dark as the cypress which waves o'er them;
Half open, from beneath them the clear blue
Laughs out, although in slumber. He must dream—
Of what? Of Paradise!—Aye! dream of it,
My disinherited boy! 'Tis but a dream;
For never more thyself, thy sons, nor fathers,
Shall walk in that forbidden place of joy!

Adah.
Dear Cain! Nay, do not whisper o'er our son
Such melancholy yearnings o'er the past:
Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise?
Can we not make another?

Cain.
Where?

Adah.
Here, or
Where'er thou wilt: where'er thou art, I feel not
The want of this so much regretted Eden.
Have I not thee—our boy—our sire, and brother,
And Zillah—our sweet sister, and our Eve,
To whom we owe so much besides our birth?

Cain.
Yes—Death, too, is amongst the debts we owe her.

Adah.
Cain! that proud Spirit, who withdrew thee hence,
Hath saddened thine still deeper. I had hoped
The promised wonders which thou hast beheld,
Visions, thou say'st, of past and present worlds,
Would have composed thy mind into the calm
Of a contented knowledge; but I see
Thy guide hath done thee evil: still I thank him,
And can forgive him all, that he so soon
Hath given thee back to us.

Cain.
So soon?

Adah.
'Tis scarcely
Two hours since ye departed: two long hours
To me, but only hours upon the sun.

Cain.
And yet I have approached that sun, and seen
Worlds which he once shone on, and never more
Shall light; and worlds he never lit: methought
Years had rolled o'er my absence.

Adah.
Hardly hours.

Cain.
The mind then hath capacity of time,
And measures it by that which it beholds,
Pleasing or painful; little or almighty.
I had beheld the immemorial works
Of endless beings; skirred extinguished worlds;
And, gazing on eternity, methought
I had borrowed more by a few drops of ages
From its immensity: but now I feel
My littleness again. Well said the Spirit,
That I was nothing!

Adah.
Wherefore said he so?
Jehovah said not that.

Cain.
No: he contents him
With making us the nothing which we are;
And after flattering dust with glimpses of
Eden and Immortality, resolves
It back to dust again—for what?

Adah.
Thou know'st—
Even for our parents' error.

Cain.
What is that
To us? they sinned, then let them die!

Adah.
Thou hast not spoken well, nor is that thought
Thy own, but of the Spirit who was with thee.
Would I could die for them, so they might live!

Cain.
Why, so say I—provided that one victim
Might satiate the Insatiable of life,
And that our little rosy sleeper there
Might never taste of death nor human sorrow,
Nor hand it down to those who spring from him.

Adah.
How know we that some such atonement one day
May not redeem our race?

Cain.
By sacrificing
The harmless for the guilty? what atonement
Were there? why, we are innocent: what have we
Done, that we must be victims for a deed
Before our birth, or need have victims to
Atone for this mysterious, nameless sin—
If it be such a sin to seek for knowledge?

Adah.
Alas! thou sinnest now, my Cain: thy words
Sound impious in mine ears.

Cain.
Then leave me!

Adah.
Never,
Though thy God left thee.

Cain.
Say, what have we here?

Adah.
Two altars, which our brother Abel made
During thine absence, whereupon to offer
A sacrifice to God on thy return.

Cain.
And how knew he, that I would be so ready
With the burnt offerings, which he daily brings
With a meek brow, whose base humility
Shows more of fear than worship—as a bribe
To the Creator?

Adah.
Surely, 'tis well done.

Cain.
One altar may suffice; I have no offering.

Adah.
The fruits of the earth, the early, beautiful,
Blossom and bud—and bloom of flowers and fruits—
These are a goodly offering to the Lord,
Given with a gentle and a contrite spirit.

Cain.
I have toiled, and tilled, and sweaten in the sun,
According to the curse:—must I do more?
For what should I be gentle? for a war
With all the elements ere they will yield
The bread we eat? For what must I be grateful?
For being dust, and grovelling in the dust,
Till I return to dust? If I am nothing—
For nothing shall I be an hypocrite,
And seem well-pleased with pain? For what should I
Be contrite? for my father's sin, already
Expiate with what we all have undergone,
And to be more than expiated by
The ages prophesied, upon our seed.
Little deems our young blooming sleeper, there,
The germs of an eternal misery
To myriads is within him! better 'twere
I snatched him in his sleep, and dashed him 'gainst
The rocks, than let him live to—

Adah.
Oh, my God!
Touch not the child—my child! thy child! Oh, Cain!

Cain.
Fear not! for all the stars, and all the power
Which sways them, I would not accost yon infant
With ruder greeting than a father's kiss.

Adah.
Then, why so awful in thy speech?

Cain.
I said,
'Twere better that he ceased to live, than give
Life to so much of sorrow as he must
Endure, and, harder still, bequeath; but since
That saying jars you, let us only say—
'Twere better that he never had been born.

Adah.
Oh, do not say so! Where were then the joys,
The mother's joys of watching, nourishing,
And loving him? Soft! he awakes. Sweet Enoch!
[She goes to the child.
Oh, Cain! look on him; see how full of life,
Of strength, of bloom, of beauty, and of joy—
How like to me—how like to thee, when gentle—
For then we are all alike; is't not so, Cain?
Mother, and sire, and son, our features are
Reflected in each other; as they are
In the clear waters, when they are gentle, and
When thou art gentle. Love us, then, my Cain!
And love thyself for our sakes, for we love thee.
Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain!
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent! Bless him, Cain!
As yet he hath no words to thank thee, but
His heart will, and thine own too.

Cain.
Bless thee, boy!
If that a mortal blessing may avail thee,
To save thee from the Serpent's curse!

Adah.
It shall.
Surely a father's blessing may avert
A reptile's subtlety.

Cain.
Of that I doubt;
But bless him ne'er the less.

Adah.
Our brother comes.

Cain.
Thy brother Abel.

Enter Abel.
Abel.
Welcome, Cain! My brother,
The peace of God be on thee!

Cain.
Abel, hail!

Abel.
Our sister tells me that thou hast been wandering,
In high communion with a Spirit, far
Beyond our wonted range. Was he of those
We have seen and spoken with, like to our father?

Cain.
No.

Abel.
Why then commune with him? he may be
A foe to the Most High.

Cain.
And friend to man.
Has the Most High been so—if so you term him?

Abel.
Term him! your words are strange to-day, my brother.
My sister Adah, leave us for awhile—
We mean to sacrifice.

Adah.
Farewell, my Cain;
But first embrace thy son. May his soft spirit,
And Abel's pious ministry, recall thee
To peace and holiness!

[Exit Adah, with her child.
Abel.
Where hast thou been?

Cain.
I know not.

Abel.
Nor what thou hast seen?

Cain.
The dead—
The Immortal—the Unbounded—the Omnipotent—
The overpowering mysteries of space—
The innumerable worlds that were and are—
A whirlwind of such overwhelming things,
Suns, moons, and earths, upon their loud-voiced spheres
Singing in thunder round me, as have made me
Unfit for mortal converse: leave me, Abel.

Abel.
Thine eyes are flashing with unnatural light—
Thy cheek is flushed with an unnatural hue—
Thy words are fraught with an unnatural sound—
What may this mean?

Cain.
It means—I pray thee, leave me.

Abel.
Not till we have prayed and sacrificed together.

Cain.
Abel, I pray thee, sacrifice alone—
Jehovah loves thee well.

Abel.
Both well, I hope.

Cain.
But thee the better: I care not for that;
Thou art fitter for his worship than I am;
Revere him, then—but let it be alone—
At least, without me.

Abel.
Brother, I should ill
Deserve the name of our great father's son,
If, as my elder, I revered thee not,
And in the worship of our God, called not
On thee to join me, and precede me in
Our priesthood—'tis thy place.

Cain.
But I have ne'er
Asserted it.

Abel.
The more my grief; I pray thee
To do so now: thy soul seems labouring in
Some strong delusion; it will calm thee.

Cain.
No;
Nothing can calm me more. Calm! say I? Never
Knew I what calm was in the soul, although
I have seen the elements stilled. My Abel, leave me!
Or let me leave thee to thy pious purpose.

Abel.
Neither; we must perform our task together.
Spurn me not.

Cain.
If it must be so—well, then,
What shall I do?

Abel.
Choose one of those two altars.

Cain.
Choose for me: they to me are so much turf
And stone.

Abel.
Choose thou!

Cain.
I have chosen.

Abel.
'Tis the highest,
And suits thee, as the elder. Now prepare
Thine offerings.

Cain.
Where are thine?

Abel.
Behold them here—
The firstlings of the flock, and fat thereof—
A shepherd's humble offering.

Cain.
I have no flocks;
I am a tiller of the ground, and must
Yield what it yieldeth to my toil—its fruit:
[He gathers fruits.
Behold them in their various bloom and ripeness.

[They dress their altars, and kindle a flame upon them.
Abel.
My brother, as the elder, offer first
Thy prayer and thanksgiving with sacrifice.

Cain.
No—I am new to this; lead thou the way,
And I will follow—as I may.

Abel
(kneeling).
Oh, God!
Who made us, and who breathed the breath of life
Within our nostrils, who hath blessed us,
And spared, despite our father's sin, to make
His children all lost, as they might have been,
Had not thy justice been so tempered with
The mercy which is thy delight, as to
Accord a pardon like a Paradise,
Compared with our great crimes:—Sole Lord of light!
Of good, and glory, and eternity!
Without whom all were evil, and with whom
Nothing can err, except to some good end
Of thine omnipotent benevolence!
Inscrutable, but still to be fulfilled!
Accept from out thy humble first of shepherds'
First of the first-born flocks—an offering,
In itself nothing—as what offering can be
Aught unto thee?—but yet accept it for
The thanksgiving of him who spreads it in
The face of thy high heaven—bowing his own
Even to the dust, of which he is—in honour
Of thee, and of thy name, for evermore!

Cain
(standing erect during this speech).
Spirit whate'er or whosoe'er thou art,
Omnipotent, it may be—and, if good,
Shown in the exemption of thy deeds from evil;
Jehovah upon earth! and God in heaven!
And it may be with other names, because
Thine attributes seem many, as thy works:—
If thou must be propitiated with prayers,
Take them! If thou must be induced with altars,
And softened with a sacrifice, receive them;
Two beings here erect them unto thee.
If thou lov'st blood, the shepherd's shrine, which smokes
On my right hand, hath shed it for thy service
In the first of his flock, whose limbs now reek
In sanguinary incense to thy skies;
Or, if the sweet and blooming fruits of earth,
And milder seasons, which the unstained turf
I spread them on now offers in the face
Of the broad sun which ripened them, may seem
Good to thee—inasmuch as they have not
Suffered in limb or life—and rather form
A sample of thy works, than supplication
To look on ours! If a shrine without victim,
And altar without gore, may win thy favour,
Look on it! and for him who dresseth it,
He is—such as thou mad'st him; and seeks nothing
Which must be won by kneeling: if he's evil,
Strike him! thou art omnipotent, and may'st—
For what can he oppose? If he be good,
Strike him, or spare him, as thou wilt! since all
Rests upon thee; and Good and Evil seem
To have no power themselves, save in thy will—
And whether that be good or ill I know not,
Not being omnipotent, nor fit to judge
Omnipotence—but merely to endure
Its mandate; which thus far I have endured.

[The fire upon the altar of Abel kindles into a column of the brightest flame, and ascends to heaven; while a whirlwind throws down the altar of Cain, and scatters the fruits abroad upon the earth.
Abel
(kneeling).
Oh, brother, pray! Jehovah's wroth with thee.

Cain.
Why so?

Abel.
Thy fruits are scattered on the earth.

Cain.
From earth they came, to earth let them return;
Their seed will bear fresh fruit there ere the summer:
Thy burnt flesh-offering prospers better; see
How Heaven licks up the flames, when thick with blood!

Abel.
Think not upon my offering's acceptance,
But make another of thine own—before
It is too late.

Cain.
I will build no more altars,
Nor suffer any—

Abel
(rising).
Cain! what meanest thou?

Cain.
To cast down yon vile flatterer of the clouds,
The smoky harbinger of thy dull prayers—
Thine altar, with its blood of lambs and kids,
Which fed on milk, to be destroyed in blood.

Abel
(opposing him).
Thou shalt not:—add not impious works to impious
Words! let that altar stand—'tis hallowed now
By the immortal pleasure of Jehovah,
In his acceptance of the victims.

Cain.
His!
His pleasure! what was his high pleasure in
The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood,
To the pain of the bleating mothers, which
Still yearn for their dead offspring? or the pangs
Of the sad ignorant victims underneath
Thy pious knife? Give way! this bloody record
Shall not stand in the sun, to shame creation!

Abel.
Brother, give back! thou shalt not touch my altar
With violence: if that thou wilt adopt it,
To try another sacrifice, 'tis thine.

Cain.
Another sacrifice! Give way, or else
That sacrifice may be—

Abel.
What mean'st thou?

Cain.
Give—
Give way!—thy God loves blood!—then look to it:—
Give way, ere he hath more!

Abel.
In his great name,
I stand between thee and the shrine which hath
Had his acceptance.

Cain.
If thou lov'st thyself,
Stand back till I have strewed this turf along
Its native soil:—else—

Abel
(opposing him).
I love God far more
Than life.

Cain
(striking him with a brand, on the temples, which he snatches from the altar).
Then take thy life unto thy God,
Since he loves lives.

Abel
(falls).
What hast thou done—my brother?

Cain.
Brother!

Abel.
Oh, God! receive thy servant! and
Forgive his slayer, for he knew not what
He did—Cain, give me—give me thy hand; and tell
Poor Zillah—

Cain
(after a moment's stupefaction).
[A long pause.—Looking slowly round.

Abel
(very faintly).
What's he who speaks of God?

Cain.
Thy murderer.

Abel.
Then may God forgive him! Cain,
Comfort poor Zillah:—she has but one brother
Now.

[Abel dies.
Cain.
And I none!—Who makes me brotherless?
His eyes are open! then he is not dead!
Death is like sleep; and sleep shuts down our lids.
His lips, too, are apart; why then he breathes;
And yet I feel it not.—His heart!—his heart!—
Let me see, doth it beat? methinks—No!—no!
This is a vision, else I am become
The native of another and worse world.
The earth swims round me:—what is this?—'tis wet;
[Puts his hand to his brow, and then looks at it.
And yet there are no dews! 'Tis blood—my blood—
My brother's and my own! and shed by me!
Then what have I further to do with life,
Since I have taken life from my own flesh?
But he can not be dead!—Is silence death?
No; he will wake; then let me watch by him.
Life cannot be so slight, as to be quenched
Thus quickly!—he hath spoken to me since—
What shall I say to him?—My brother!—No:
He will not answer to that name; for brethren
Smite not each other. Yet—yet—speak to me.
Oh! for a word more of that gentle voice,
That I may bear to hear my own again!

Enter Zillah.
Zillah.
I heard a heavy sound; what can it be?
'Tis Cain; and watching by my husband. What
Dost thou there, brother? Doth he sleep? Oh, Heaven!
What means this paleness, and yon stream?—No, no!
It is not blood; for who would shed his blood?
Abel! what's this?—who hath done this? He moves not;
He breathes not: and his hands drop down from mine
With stony lifelessness! Ah! cruel Cain!
Why camest thou not in time to save him from
This violence? Whatever hath assailed him,
Thou wert the stronger, and shouldst have stepped in
Between him and aggression! Father!—Eve!—
Adah!—come hither! Death is in the world!

[Exit Zillah, calling on her Parents, etc.
Cain
(solus).
And who hath brought him there?—I—who abhor
The name of Death so deeply, that the thought
Empoisoned all my life, before I knew
His aspect—I have led him here, and given
My brother to his cold and still embrace,
As if he would not have asserted his
Inexorable claim without my aid.
I am awake at last—a dreary dream
Had maddened me;—but he shall ne'er awake!

Enter Adam, Eve, Adah, and Zillah.
Adam.
A voice of woe from Zillah brings me here—
What do I see?—'Tis true!—My son!—my son!
Woman, behold the Serpent's work, and thine!

[To Eve.
Eve.
Oh! speak not of it now: the Serpent's fangs
Are in my heart! My best beloved, Abel!
Jehovah! this is punishment beyond
A mother's sin, to take him from me!

Adam.
Who,
Or what hath done this deed?—speak, Cain, since thou
Wert present; was it some more hostile angel,
Who walks not with Jehovah? or some wild
Brute of the forest?

Eve.
Ah! a livid light
Breaks through, as from a thunder-cloud! yon brand
Massy and bloody! snatched from off the altar,
And black with smoke, and red with—

Adam.
Speak, my son!
Speak, and assure us, wretched as we are,
That we are not more miserable still.

Adah.
Speak, Cain! and say it was not thou!

Eve.
It was!
I see it now—he hangs his guilty head,
And covers his ferocious eye with hands
Incarnadine!

Adah.
Mother, thou dost him wrong—
Cain! clear thee from this horrible accusal,
Which grief wrings from our parent.

Eve.
Hear, Jehovah!
May the eternal Serpent's curse be on him!
For he was fitter for his seed than ours.
May all his days be desolate! May—

Adah.
Hold!
Curse him not, mother, for he is thy son—
Curse him not, mother, for he is my brother,
And my betrothed.

Eve.
He hath left thee no brother—
Zillah no husband—me no son! for thus
I curse him from my sight for evermore!
All bonds I break between us, as he broke
That of his nature, in yon—Oh Death! Death!
Why didst thou not take me, who first incurred thee?
Why dost thou not so now?

Adam.
Eve! let not this,
Thy natural grief, lead to impiety!
A heavy doom was long forespoken to us;
And now that it begins, let it be borne
In such sort as may show our God, that we
Are faithful servants to his holy will.

Eve
(pointing to Cain).
His will! the will of yon Incarnate Spirit
Of Death, whom I have brought upon the earth
To strew it with the dead. May all the curses
Of life be on him! and his agonies
Drive him forth o'er the wilderness, like us
From Eden, till his children do by him
As he did by his brother! May the swords
And wings of fiery Cherubim pursue him
By day and night—snakes spring up in his path—
Earth's fruits be ashes in his mouth—the leaves
On which he lays his head to sleep be strewed
With scorpions! May his dreams be of his victim!
His waking a continual dread of Death!
May the clear rivers turn to blood as he
Stoops down to stain them with his raging lip!
May every element shun or change to him!
May he live in the pangs which others die with!
And Death itself wax something worse than Death
To him who first acquainted him with man!
Hence, fratricide! henceforth that word is Cain,
Through all the coming myriads of mankind,
Who shall abhor thee, though thou wert their sire!
May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God!

[Exit Eve.
Adam.
Cain! get thee forth: we dwell no more together.
Depart! and leave the dead to me—I am
Henceforth alone—we never must meet more.

Adah.
Oh, part not with him thus, my father: do not
Add thy deep curse to Eve's upon his head!

Adam.
I curse him not: his spirit be his curse.
Come, Zillah!

Zillah.
I must watch my husband's corse.

Adam.
We will return again, when he is gone
Who hath provided for us this dread office.
Come, Zillah!

Zillah.
Yet one kiss on yon pale clay,
And those lips once so warm—my heart! my heart!

[Exeunt Adam and Zillah weeping.
Adah.
Cain! thou hast heard, we must go forth. I am ready,
So shall our children be. I will bear Enoch,
And you his sister. Ere the sun declines
Let us depart, nor walk the wilderness
Under the cloud of night.—Nay, speak to me.
To me—thine own.

Cain.
Leave me!

Adah.
Why, all have left thee.

Cain.
And wherefore lingerest thou? Dost thou not fear
To dwell with one who hath done this?

Adah.
I fear
Nothing except to leave thee, much as I
Shrink from the deed which leaves thee brotherless.
I must not speak of this—it is between thee
And the great God.

A Voice from within exclaims.
Cain! Cain!

Adah.
Hear'st thou that voice?

The Voice within.
Cain! Cain!

Adah.
It soundeth like an angel's tone.

Enter the Angel of the Lord.
Angel.
Where is thy brother Abel?

Cain.
Am I then
My brother's keeper?

Angel.
Cain! what hast thou done?
The voice of thy slain brother's blood cries out,
Even from the ground, unto the Lord!—Now art thou
Cursed from the earth, which opened late her mouth
To drink thy brother's blood from thy rash hand.
Henceforth, when thou shalt till the ground, it shall not
Yield thee her strength; a fugitive shalt thou
Be from this day, and vagabond on earth!

Adah.
This punishment is more than he can bear.
Behold thou drivest him from the face of earth,
And from the face of God shall he be hid.
A fugitive and vagabond on earth,
'Twill come to pass, that whoso findeth him
Shall slay him.

Cain.
Would they could! but who are they
Shall slay me? Where are these on the lone earth
As yet unpeopled?

Angel.
Thou hast slain thy brother,
And who shall warrant thee against thy son?

Adah.
Angel of Light! be merciful, nor say
That this poor aching breast now nourishes
A murderer in my boy, and of his father.

Angel.
Then he would but be what his father is.
Did not the milk of Eve give nutriment
To him thou now seest so besmeared with blood?
The fratricide might well engender parricides.—
But it shall not be so—the Lord thy God
And mine commandeth me to set his seal
On Cain, so that he may go forth in safety.
Who slayeth Cain, a sevenfold vengeance shall
Be taken on his head. Come hither!

Cain.
What
Wouldst thou with me?

Angel.
To mark upon thy brow
Exemption from such deeds as thou hast done.

Cain.
No, let me die!

Angel.
It must not be.

[The Angel sets the mark on Cain's brow.
Cain.
It burns
My brow, but nought to that which is within it!
Is there more? let me meet it as I may.

Angel.
Stern hast thou been and stubborn from the womb,
As the ground thou must henceforth till; but he
Thou slew'st was gentle as the flocks he tended.

Cain.
After the fall too soon was I begotten;
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided from
The Serpent, and my sire still mourned for Eden.
That which I am, I am; I did not seek
For life, nor did I make myself; but could I
With my own death redeem him from the dust—
And why not so? let him return to day,
And I lie ghastly! so shall be restored
By God the life to him he loved; and taken
From me a being I ne'er loved to bear.

Angel.
Who shall heal murder? what is done, is done;
Go forth! fulfil thy days! and be thy deeds
Unlike the last!

[The Angel disappears.
Adah.
He's gone, let us go forth;
I hear our little Enoch cry within
Our bower.

Cain.
Ah! little knows he what he weeps for!
And I who have shed blood cannot shed tears!
But the four rivers would not cleanse my soul.
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look on me?

Adah.
If I thought that he would not, I would—

Cain
(interrupting her).
No,
No more of threats: we have had too many of them:
Go to our children—I will follow thee.

Adah.
I will not leave thee lonely with the dead—
Let us depart together.

Cain.
Oh! thou dead
And everlasting witness! whose unsinking
Blood darkens earth and heaven! what thou now art
I know not! but if thou seest what I am,
I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul.—Farewell!
I must not, dare not touch what I have made thee.
I, who sprung from the same womb with thee, drained
The same breast, clasped thee often to my own,
In fondness brotherly and boyish, I
Can never meet thee more, nor even dare
To do that for thee, which thou shouldst have done
For me—compose thy limbs into their grave—
The first grave yet dug for mortality.
But who hath dug that grave? Oh, earth! Oh, earth!
For all the fruits thou hast rendered to me, I
Give thee back this.—Now for the wilderness!

[Adah stoops down and kisses the body of Abel.
Adah.
A dreary, and an early doom, my brother,
Has been thy lot! Of all who mourn for thee,
I alone must not weep. My office is
Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed them;
But yet of all who mourn, none mourn like me,
Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee.
Now, Cain! I will divide thy burden with thee.

Cain.
Eastward from Eden will we take our way;
'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps.

Adah.
Lead! thou shalt be my guide, and may our God
Be thine! Now let us carry forth our children.

Cain.
And he who lieth there was childless! I
Have dried the fountain of a gentle race,
Which might have graced his recent marriage couch,
And might have tempered this stern blood of mine,
Uniting with our children Abel's offspring!
O Abel!

Adah.
Peace be with him!

Cain.
But with me!—

[Exeunt.

HEAVEN AND EARTH;

A MYSTERY.

[_]

Founded on the Following Passage in Genesis, Chap. vi. 1, 2.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ANGELS.

• Samiasa.
• Azaziel.
• Raphael, the Archangel.

MEN.

• Noah and his Sons.
• Irad.
• Japhet.

WOMEN.

• Anah.
• Aholibamah.

Chorus of Spirits of the Earth.—Chorus of Mortals.

I. PART I.

Scene I.

—A woody and mountainous district near Mount Ararat.—Time, midnight.
Enter Anah and Aholibamah.
Anah.
Our father sleeps: it is the hour when they
Who love us are accustomed to descend
Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat:—
How my heart beats!

Aho.
Let us proceed upon
Our invocation.

Anah.
But the stars are hidden.
I tremble.

Aho.
So do I, but not with fear
Of aught save their delay.

Anah.
My sister, though
I love Azaziel more than—oh, too much!
What was I going to say? my heart grows impious.

Aho.
And where is the impiety of loving
Celestial natures?

Anah.
But, Aholibamah,
I love our God less since his angel loved me:
This cannot be of good; and though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears
Which are not ominous of right.

Aho.
Then wed thee
Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin!
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long:
Marry, and bring forth dust!

Anah.
I should have loved
Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet
I am glad he is not. I cannot outlive him.
And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre
Of the poor child of clay which so adored him,
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:
His grief will be of ages, or at least
Mine would be such for him, were I the Seraph,
And he the perishable.

Aho.
Rather say,
That he will single forth some other daughter
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah.

Anah.
And if it should be so, and she loved him,
Better thus than that he should weep for me.

Aho.
If I thought thus of Samiasa's love,
All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me.
But to our invocation!—'Tis the hour.

Anah.
Seraph!
From thy sphere!
Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven
Albeit thou watchest with “the seven,”
Though through space infinite and hoary
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven,
Yet hear!
Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!
And though she nothing is to thee,
Yet think that thou art all to her.
Thou canst not tell,—and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,—
The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thine years,
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathise,
Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne'er wept beneath the skies.
Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least
Of those cast out from Eden's gate:
Yet, Seraph dear!
Oh hear!
For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forget'st in thine eternity
Her whose heart Death could not keep from o'er-flowing
For thee, immortal essence as thou art!
Great is their love who love in sin and fear;
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart
A war unworthy: to an Adamite
Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear,
For sorrow is our element;
Delight
An Eden kept afar from sight,
Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near
Which tells me we are not abandoned quite.—
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!
My own Azaziel! be but here,
And leave the stars to their own light!

Aho.
Samiasa!
Wheresoe'er
Thou rulest in the upper air—
Or warring with the spirits who may dare
Dispute with him
Who made all empires, empire; or recalling
Some wandering star, which shoots through the abyss,
Whose tenants dying, while their world is falling,
Share the dim destiny of clay in this;
Or joining with the inferior cherubim,
Thou deignest to partake their hymn—
Samiasa!
I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!
Though I be formed of clay,
And thou of beams
More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams,
Thine immortality can not repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray
In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine,
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine.
It may be hidden long: death and decay
Our mother Eve bequeathed us—but my heart
Defies it: though this life must pass away,
Is that a cause for thee and me to part?
Thou art immortal—so am I: I feel—
I feel my immortality o'ersweep
All pains, all tears, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth—“Thou liv'st for ever!”
But if it be in joy
I know not, nor would know;
That secret rests with the Almighty giver,
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are
Of as eternal essence, and must war
With him if he will war with us; with thee
I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;
For thou hast ventured to share life with me,
And shall I shrink from thine eternity?
No! though the serpent's sting should pierce me thorough,
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil
Around me still! and I will smile,
And curse thee not; but hold
Thee in as warm a fold
As — but descend, and prove
A mortal's love
For an immortal. If the skies contain
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain!

Anah.
Sister! sister! I view them winging
Their bright way through the parted night.

Aho.
The clouds from off their pinions flinging,
As though they bore to-morrow's light.

Anah.
But if our father see the sight!

Aho.
He would but deem it was the moon
Rising unto some sorcerer's tune
An hour too soon.

Anah.
They come! he comes!—Azaziel!

Aho.
Haste
To meet them! Oh! for wings to bear
My spirit, while they hover there,
To Samiasa's breast!

Anah.
Lo! they have kindled all the west,
Like a returning sunset;—lo!
On Ararat's late secret crest
A mild and many-coloured bow,
The remnant of their flashing path,
Now shines! and now, behold! it hath
Returned to night, as rippling foam,
Which the Leviathan hath lashed
From his unfathomable home,
When sporting on the face of the calm deep,
Subsides soon after he again hath dashed
Down, down, to where the Ocean's fountains sleep.

Aho.
They have touched earth! Samiasa!

Anah.
My Azaziel!

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

—Enter Irad and Japhet.
Irad.
Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus
To add thy silence to the silent night,
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars?
They cannot aid thee.

Japh.
But they soothe me—now
Perhaps she looks upon them as I look.
Methinks a being that is beautiful
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty,
The eternal beauty of undying things.
Oh, Anah!

Irad.
But she loves thee not.

Japh.
Alas!

Irad.
And proud Aholibamah spurns me also.

Japh.
I feel for thee too.

Irad.
Let her keep her pride,
Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn:
It may be, time too will avenge it.

Japh.
Canst thou
Find joy in such a thought?

Irad.
Nor joy nor sorrow.
I loved her well; I would have loved her better,
Had love been met with love: as 'tis, I leave her
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them.

Japh.
What destinies?

Irad.
I have some cause to think
She loves another.

Japh.
Anah!

Irad.
No; her sister.

Japh.
What other?

Irad.
That I know not; but her air,
If not her words, tells me she loves another.

Japh.
Aye, but not Anah: she but loves her God.

Irad.
Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not,
What can it profit thee?

Japh.
True, nothing; but
I love.

Irad.
And so did I.

Japh.
And now thou lov'st not,
Or think'st thou lov'st not, art thou happier?

Irad.
Yes.

Japh.
I pity thee.

Irad.
Me! why?

Japh.
For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.

Irad.
I take thy taunt as part of thy distemper,
And would not feel as thou dost for more shekels
Than all our father's herds would bring, if weighed
Against the metal of the sons of Cain—
The yellow dust they try to barter with us,
As if such useless and discoloured trash,
The refuse of the earth, could be received
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, and all
Our flocks and wilderness afford.—Go, Japhet,
Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the moon—
I must back to my rest.

Japh.
And so would I
If I could rest.

Irad.
Thou wilt not to our tents then?

Japh.
No, Irad; I will to the cavern, whose
Mouth they say opens from the internal world,
To let the inner spirits of the earth
Forth when they walk its surface.

Irad.
Wherefore so?
What wouldst thou there?

Japh.
Soothe further my sad spirit
With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,
And I am hopeless.

Irad.
But 'tis dangerous;
Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors.
I must go with thee.

Japh.
Irad, no; believe me
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil.

Irad.
But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.

Japh.
No, neither, Irad;
I must proceed alone.

Irad.
Then peace be with thee!

[Exit Irad.
Japh.
(solus).
Peace! I have sought it where it should be found,
In love—with love, too, which perhaps deserved it;
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart,
A weakness of the spirit, listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm
Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by
The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs;
Such is the sullen or the fitful state
Of my mind overworn. The Earth's grown wicked,
And many signs and portents have proclaimed
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah!
When the dread hour denounced shall open wide
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou
Have lain within this bosom, folded from
The elements; this bosom, which in vain
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vainly,
While thine—Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amidst the failing
As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench,
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anah!
How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst not;
And still would I redeem thee—see thee live
When Ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed
By rock or shallow, the Leviathan,
Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world,
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of realm.

[Exit Japhet.
Enter Noah and Shem.
Noah.
Where is thy brother Japhet?

Shem.
He went forth,
According to his wont, to meet with Irad,
He said; but, as I fear, to bend his steps
Towards Anah's tents, round which he hovers nightly,
Like a dove round and round its pillaged nest;
Or else he walks the wild up to the cavern
Which opens to the heart of Ararat.

Noah.
What doth he there? It is an evil spot
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Than even wicked men resort there: he
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she loved him,
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts
Of men! that one of my blood, knowing well
The destiny and evil of these days,
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge
In such forbidden yearnings! Lead the way;
He must be sought for!

Shem.
Go not forward, father:
I will seek Japhet.

Noah.
Do not fear for me:
All evil things are powerless on the man
Selected by Jehovah.—Let us on.

Shem.
To the tents of the father of the sisters?

Noah.
No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.

[Exeunt Noah and Shem.

Scene III.

—The mountains.—A cavern, and the rocks if Caucasus.
Japh.
(solus).
Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,
Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
So varied and so terrible in beauty;
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks
And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone
In perpendicular places, where the foot
Of man would tremble, could he reach them—yes,
Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurled
Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,
Which seems to lead into a lower world,
Shall have its depths searched by the sweeping wave,
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!
And man — Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
Shall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
Alas! what am I better than ye are,
That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
While I had hope? or the more savage haunts,
Scarce less beloved, where I despaired for her?
And can it be!—Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
And scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
Leaving it with a crown of many hues?
No more to be the beacon of the world,
For angels to alight on, as the spot
Nearest the stars? And can those words “no more”
Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
He preserve them, and I not have the power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his mate,
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolonged,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world,
Reeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until
The salt morass subside into a sphere
Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguished sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be stilled at once! All beauteous world!
So young, so marked out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy numbered days and nights.
I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but as
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think
Upon thy coming doom without a feeling
Such as—Oh God! and canst thou—

[He pauses.
[A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts of laughter—afterwards a Spirit passes.
Japh.
In the name
Of the Most High, what art thou?

Spirit
(laughs).
Ha! ha! ha!

Japh.
By all that earth holds holiest, speak!

Spirit
(laughs).
Ha! ha!

Japh.
By the approaching deluge! by the earth
Which will be strangled by the ocean! by
The deep which will lay open all her fountains!
The heaven which will convert her clouds to seas,
And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes!
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct,
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me!
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh?

Spirit.
Why weep'st thou?

Japh.
For earth and all her children.

Spirit.
Ha! ha! ha!

[Spirit vanishes.
Japh.
How the fiend mocks the tortures of a world,
The coming desolation of an orb,
On which the sun shall rise and warm no life!
How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is
Sleep too upon the very eve of death!
Why should they wake to meet it? What are here,
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!

[Various Spirits pass from the cavern.
Spirit.
Rejoice!
The abhorréd race
Which could not keep in Eden their high place,
But listened to the voice
Of knowledge without power,
Are nigh the hour,
Of Death!
Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,
Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion,
Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!
Earth shall be Ocean!
And no breath,
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save,
Or show the place where strong Despair hath died,
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not:
All shall be void,
Destroyed!
Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorred
Children of dust be quenched; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain
Shall nought remain
Unchanged, or of the level plain;
Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain:
All merged within the universal fountain,
Man, earth, and fire, shall die,
And sea and sky
Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye.
Upon the foam
Who shall erect a home?

Japh.
(coming forward).
My sire!
Earth's seed shall not expire;
Only the evil shall be put away
From day.
Avaunt! ye exulting demons of the waste!
Who howl your hideous joy
When God destroys whom you dare not destroy:
Hence! haste!
Back to your inner caves!
Until the waves
Shall search you in your secret place,
And drive your sullen race
Forth, to be rolled upon the tossing winds,
In restless wretchedness along all space!

Spirit.
Son of the saved!
When thou and thine have braved
The wide and warring element;
When the great barrier of the deep is rent,
Shall thou and thine be good or happy?—No!
Thy new world and new race shall be of woe—
Less goodly in their aspect, in their years
Less than the glorious giants, who
Yet walk the world in pride,
The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride.
Thine shall be nothing of the past, save tears!
And art thou not ashamed
Thus to survive,
And eat, and drink, and wive?
With a base heart so far subdued and tamed,
As even to hear this wide destruction named,
Without such grief and courage, as should rather
Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave,
Than seek a shelter with thy favoured father,
And build thy city o'er the drowned earth's grave?
Who would outlive their kind,
Except the base and blind?
Mine
Hateth thine
As of a different order in the sphere,
But not our own.
There is not one who hath not left a throne
Vacant in heaven to dwell in darkness here,
Rather than see his mates endure alone.
Go, wretch! and give
A life like thine to other wretches—live!
And when the annihilating waters roar
Above what they have done,
Envy the giant patriarchs then no more,
And scorn thy sire as the surviving one!
Thyself for being his son!

Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cavern.
Japh.
(interrupting them).
The eternal Will
Shall deign to expound this dream
Of good and evil; and redeem
Unto himself all times, all things;
And, gathered under his almighty wings,
Abolish Hell!
And to the expiated Earth
Restore the beauty of her birth,
Her Eden in an endless paradise,
Where man no more can fall as once he fell,
And even the very demons shall do well!

Spirits.
And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?

Japh.
When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain,
And then in glory.

Spirit.
Meantime still struggle in the mortal chain,
Till Earth wax hoary;
War with yourselves, and Hell, and Heaven, in vain,
Until the clouds look gory
With the blood reeking from each battle-plain;
New times, new climes, new arts, new men; but still,
The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill,
Shall be amongst your race in different forms;
But the same moral storms
Shall oversweep the future, as the waves
In a few hours the glorious giants' graves.

Chorus of Spirits.
Brethren, rejoice!
Mortal, farewell!
Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice
Of growing Ocean's gloomy swell;
The winds, too, plume their piercing wings;
The clouds have nearly filled their springs;
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken,
And heaven set wide her windows; while mankind
View, unacknowledged, each tremendous token—
Still, as they were from the beginning, blind.
We hear the sound they cannot hear,
The mustering thunders of the threatening sphere;
Yet a few hours their coming is delayed;
Their flashing banners, folded still on high,
Yet undisplayed,
Save to the Spirit's all-pervading eye.
Howl! howl! oh Earth!
Thy death is nearer than thy recent birth;
Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink below
The Ocean's overflow!
The wave shall break upon your cliffs; and shells,
The little shells, of ocean's least things be
Deposed where now the eagle's offspring dwells—
How shall he shriek o'er the remorseless sea!
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,
Unanswered, save by the encroaching swell;—
While man shall long in vain for his broad wings,
The wings which could not save:—
Where could he rest them, while the whole space brings
Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his grave?
Brethren, rejoice!
And loudly lift each superhuman voice—
All die,
Save the slight remnant of Seth's seed—
The seed of Seth,
Exempt for future sorrow's sake from death.
But of the sons of Cain
None shall remain;
And all his goodly daughters
Must lie beneath the desolating waters;
Or, floating upward, with their long hair laid
Along the wave, the cruel heaven upbraid,
Which would not spare
Beings even in death so fair.
It is decreed,
All die!
And to the universal human cry
The universal silence shall succeed!
Fly, brethren, fly!
But still rejoice!
We fell!
They fall!
So perish all
These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from Hell!

[The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards.
Japh.
(solus).
God hath proclaimed the destiny of earth;
My father's ark of safety hath announced it;
The very demons shriek it from their caves;
The scroll of Enoch prophesied it long
In silent books, which, in their silence, say
More to the mind than thunder to the ear:
And yet men listened not, nor listen; but
Walk darkling to their doom: which, though so nigh,
Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief,
Than their last cries shall shake the Almighty purpose,
Or deaf obedient Ocean, which fulfils it.
No sign yet hangs its banner in the air;
The clouds are few, and of their wonted texture;
The Sun will rise upon the Earth's last day
As on the fourth day of creation, when
God said unto him, “Shine!” and he broke forth
Into the dawn, which lighted not the yet
Unformed forefather of mankind—but roused
Before the human orison the earlier
Made and far sweeter voices of the birds,
Which in the open firmament of heaven
Have wings like angels, and like them salute
Heaven first each day before the Adamites:
Their matins now draw nigh—the east is kindling—
And they will sing! and day will break! Both near,
So near the awful close! For these must drop
Their outworn pinions on the deep; and day,
After the bright course of a few brief morrows,—
Aye, day will rise; but upon what?—a chaos,
Which was ere day; and which, renewed, makes Time
Nothing! for, without life, what are the hours?
No more to dust than is Eternity
Unto Jehovah, who created both.
Without him, even Eternity would be
A void: without man, Time, as made for man,
Dies with man, and is swallowed in that deep
Which has no fountain; as his race will be
Devoured by that which drowns his infant world.—
What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air?
No—all of heaven, they are so beautiful.
I cannot trace their features; but their forms,
How lovelily they move along the side
Of the grey mountain, scattering its mist!
And after the swart savage spirits, whose
Infernal immortality poured forth
Their impious hymn of triumph, they shall be
Welcome as Eden. It may be they come
To tell me the reprieve of our young world,
For which I have so often prayed.—They come!
Anah! oh, God! and with her—

Enter Samiasa, Azaziel, Anah, and Aholibamah.
Anah.
Japhet!

Sam.
Lo!
A son of Adam!

Aza.
What doth the earth-born here,
While all his race are slumbering?

Japh.
Angel! what
Dost thou on earth when thou should'st be on high?

Aza.
Know'st thou not, or forget'st thou, that a part
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?

Japh.
But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemned; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved!
Why walk'st thou with this Spirit, in those hours
When no good Spirit longer lights below?

Anah.
Japhet, I cannot answer thee; yet, yet
Forgive me—

Japh.
May the Heaven, which soon no more
Will pardon, do so! for thou art greatly tempted.

Aho.
Back to thy tents, insulting son of Noah!
We know thee not.

Japh.
The hour may come when thou
May'st know me better; and thy sister know
Me still the same which I have ever been.

Sam.
Son of the patriarch, who hath ever been
Upright before his God, whate'er thy gifts,
And thy words seem of sorrow, mixed with wrath,
How have Azaziel, or myself, brought on thee
Wrong?

Japh.
Wrong! the greatest of all wrongs! but, thou
Say'st well, though she be dust—I did not, could not,
Deserve her. Farewell, Anah! I have said
That word so often! but now say it, ne'er
To be repeated. Angel! or whate'er
Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou the power
To save this beautiful—these beautiful
Children of Cain?

Aza.
From what?

Japh.
And is it so,
That ye too know not? Angels! angels! ye
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, now must
Partake his punishment; or, at the least,
My sorrow.

Sam.
Sorrow! I ne'er thought till now
To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me.

Japh.
And hath not the Most High expounded them?
Then ye are lost as they are lost.

Aho.
So be it!
If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink
More to be mortal, than I would to dare
An immortality of agonies
With Samiasa!

Anah.
Sister! sister! speak not
Thus.

Aza.
Fearest thou, my Anah?

Anah.
Yes, for thee:
I would resign the greater remnant of
This little life of mine, before one hour
Of thine eternity should know a pang.

Japh.
It is for him, then! for the Seraph thou
Hast left me! That is nothing, if thou hast not
Left thy God too! for unions like to these,
Between a mortal and an immortal, cannot
Be happy or be hallowed. We are sent
Upon the earth to toil and die; and they
Are made to minister on high unto
The Highest: but if he can save thee, soon
The hour will come in which celestial aid
Alone can do so.

Anah.
Ah! he speaks of Death.

Sam.
Of death to us! and those who are with us!
But that the man seems full of sorrow, I
Could smile.

Japh.
I grieve not for myself, nor fear.
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found
Righteous enough to save his children. Would
His power was greater of redemption! or
That by exchanging my own life for hers,
Who could alone have made mine happy, she,
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share
The ark which shall receive a remnant of
The seed of Seth!

Aho.
And dost thou think that we,
With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood
Warm in our veins,—strong Cain! who was begotten
In Paradise,—would mingle with Seth's children?
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's dotage?
No, not to save all Earth, were Earth in peril!
Our race hath always dwelt apart from thine
From the beginning, and shall do so ever.

Japh.
I did not speak to thee, Aholibamah!
Too much of the forefather whom thou vauntest
Has come down in that haughty blood which springs
From him who shed the first, and that a brother's!
But thou, my Anah! let me call thee mine,
Albeit thou art not; 'tis a word I cannot
Part with, although I must from thee. My Anah!
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Abel
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art
The rest of the stern Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour—

Aho.
(interrupting him).
And would'st thou have her like our father's foe
In mind, in soul? If I partook thy thought,
And dreamed that aught of Abel was in her!—
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou makest strife.

Japh.
Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!

Aho.
But
He slew not Seth: and what hast thou to do
With other deeds between his God and him?

Japh.
Thou speakest well: his God hath judged him, and
I had not named his deed, but that thyself
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink
From what he had done.

Aho.
He was our father's father;
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring:—Shall I blush for him
From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behold their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days—

Japh.
They are numbered.

Aho.
Be it so! but while yet their hours endure,
I glory in my brethren and our fathers.

Japh.
My sire and race but glory in their God,
Anah! and thou?—

Anah.
Whate'er our God decrees,
The God of Seth as Cain, I must obey,
And will endeavour patiently to obey.
But could I dare to pray in his dread hour
Of universal vengeance (if such should be),
It would not be to live, alone exempt
Of all my house. My sister! oh, my sister!
What were the world, or other worlds, or all
The brightest future, without the sweet past—
Thy love, my father's, all the life, and all
The things which sprang up with me, like the stars,
Making my dim existence radiant with
Soft lights which were not mine? Aholibamah!
Oh! if there should be mercy—seek it, find it:
I abhor Death, because that thou must die.

Aho.
What, hath this dreamer, with his father's ark,
The bugbear he hath built to scare the world,
Shaken my sister? Are we not the loved
Of Seraphs? and if we were not, must we
Cling to a son of Noah for our lives?
Rather than thus—But the enthusiast dreams
The worst of dreams, the fantasies engendered
By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth,
And bid those clouds and waters take a shape
Distinct from that which we and all our sires
Have seen them wear on their eternal way?
Who shall do this?

Japh.
He whose one word produced them.

Aho.
Who heard that word?

Japh.
The universe, which leaped
To life before it. Ah! smilest thou still in scorn?
Turn to thy Seraphs: if they attest it not,
They are none.

Sam.
Aholibamah, own thy God!

Aho.
I have ever hailed our Maker, Samiasa,
As thine, and mine: a God of Love, not Sorrow.

Japh.
Alas! what else is Love but Sorrow? Even
He who made earth in love had soon to grieve
Above its first and best inhabitants.

Aho.
'Tis said so.

Japh.
It is even so.

Enter Noah and Shem.
Noah.
Japhet! What
Dost thou here with these children of the wicked?
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom?

Japh.
Father, it cannot be a sin to seek
To save an earth-born being; and behold,
These are not of the sinful, since they have
The fellowship of angels.

Noah.
These are they, then,
Who leave the throne of God, to take them wives
From out the race of Cain; the sons of Heaven,
Who seek Earth's daughters for their beauty?

Aza.
Patriarch!
Thou hast said it.

Noah.
Woe, woe, woe to such communion!
Has not God made a barrier between Earth
And Heaven, and limited each, kind to kind?

Sam.
Was not man made in high Jehovah's image?
Did God not love what he had made? And what
Do we but imitate and emulate
His love unto created love?

Noah.
I am
But man, and was not made to judge mankind,
Far less the sons of God; but as our God
Has deigned to commune with me, and reveal
His judgments, I reply, that the descent
Of Seraphs from their everlasting seat
Unto a perishable and perishing,
Even on the very eve of perishing, world,
Cannot be good.

Aza.
What! though it were to save?

Noah.
Not ye in all your glory can redeem
What he who made you glorious hath condemned.
Were your immortal mission safety, 'twould
Be general, not for two, though beautiful;
And beautiful they are, but not the less
Condemned.

Japh.
Oh, father! say it not.

Noah.
Son! son!
If that thou wouldst avoid their doom, forget
That they exist: they soon shall cease to be,
While thou shalt be the sire of a new world,
And better.

Japh.
Let me die with this, and them!

Noah.
Thou shouldst for such a thought, but shalt not: he
Who can, redeems thee.

Sam.
And why him and thee,
More than what he, thy son, prefers to both?

Noah.
Ask him who made thee greater than myself
And mine, but not less subject to his own
Almightiness. And lo! his mildest and
Least to be tempted messenger appears!

Enter Raphael the Archangel.
Raph.
Spirits!
Whose seat is near the throne,
What do ye here?
Is thus a Seraph's duty to be shown,
Now that the hour is near
When Earth must be alone?
Return!
Adore and burn,
In glorious homage with the elected “Seven.”
Your place is Heaven.

Sam.
Raphael!
The first and fairest of the sons of God,
How long hath this been law,
That Earth by angels must be left untrod?
Earth! which oft saw
Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her sod!
The world he loved, and made
For love; and oft have we obeyed
His frequent mission with delighted pinions:
Adoring him in his least works displayed;
Watching this youngest star of his dominions;
And, as the latest birth of his great word,
Eager to keep it worthy of our Lord.
Why is thy brow severe?
And wherefore speak'st thou of destruction near?

Raph.
Had Samiasa and Azaziel been
In their true place, with the angelic choir,
Written in fire
They would have seen
Jehovah's late decree,
And not enquired their Maker's breath of me:
But ignorance must ever be
A part of sin;
And even the Spirits' knowledge shall grow less
As they wax proud within;
For Blindness is the first-born of Excess.
When all good angels left the world, ye stayed,
Stung with strange passions, and debased
By mortal feelings for a mortal maid:
But ye are pardoned thus far, and replaced
With your pure equals. Hence! away! away!
Or stay,
And lose Eternity by that delay!

Aza.
And thou! if Earth be thus forbidden
In the decree
To us until this moment hidden,
Dost thou not err as we
In being here?

Raph.
I came to call ye back to your fit sphere,
In the great name and at the word of God,
Dear, dearest in themselves, and scarce less dear—
That which I came to do: till now we trod
Together the eternal space; together
Let us still walk the stars. True, Earth must die!
Her race, returned into her womb, must wither,
And much which she inherits: but oh! why
Cannot this Earth be made, or be destroyed,
Without involving ever some vast void
In the immortal ranks? immortal still
In their immeasurable forfeiture.
Our brother Satan fell; his burning will
Rather than longer worship dared endure!
But ye who still are pure!
Seraphs! less mighty than that mightiest one,—
Think how he was undone!
And think if tempting man can compensate
For Heaven desired too late?
Long have I warred,
Long must I war
With him who deemed it hard
To be created, and to acknowledge him
Who midst the cherubim
Made him as suns to a dependent star,
Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim.
I loved him—beautiful he was: oh, Heaven!
Save his who made, what beauty and what power
Was ever like to Satan's! Would the hour
In which he fell could ever be forgiven!
The wish is impious: but, oh ye!
Yet undestroyed, be warned! Eternity
With him, or with his God, is in your choice:
He hath not tempted you; he cannot tempt
The angels, from his further snares exempt:
But man hath listened to his voice,
And ye to woman's—beautiful she is,
The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss.
The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw
A second host from heaven, to break Heaven's law.
Yet, yet, oh fly!
Ye cannot die;
But they
Shall pass away,
While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky
For perishable clay,
Whose memory in your immortality
Shall long outlast the Sun which gave them day.
Think how your essence differeth from theirs
In all but suffering! why partake
The agony to which they must be heirs—
Born to be ploughed with years, and sown with cares,
And reaped by Death, lord of the human soil?
Even had their days been left to toil their path
Through time to dust, unshortened by God's wrath,
Still they are Evil's prey, and Sorrow's spoil.

Aho.
Let them fly!
I hear the voice which says that all must die,
Sooner than our white-bearded patriarchs died;
And that on high
An ocean is prepared,
While from below
The deep shall rise to meet Heaven's overflow—
Few shall be spared,
It seems; and, of that few, the race of Cain
Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in vain.
Sister! since it is so,
And the eternal Lord
In vain would be implored
For the remission of one hour of woe,
Let us resign even what we have adored,
And meet the wave, as we would meet the sword,
If not unmoved, yet undismayed,
And wailing less for us than those who shall
Survive in mortal or immortal thrall,
And, when the fatal waters are allayed,
Weep for the myriads who can weep no more.
Fly, Seraphs! to your own eternal shore,
Where winds nor howl, nor waters roar.
Our portion is to die,
And yours to live for ever:
But which is best, a dead Eternity,
Or living, is but known to the great Giver.
Obey him, as we shall obey;
I would not keep this life of mine in clay
An hour beyond his will;
Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace,
For all the mercy which Seth's race
Find still.
Fly!
And as your pinions bear ye back to Heaven,
Think that my love still mounts with thee on high,
Samiasa!
And if I look up with a tearless eye,
'Tis that an angel's bride disdains to weep,—
Farewell! Now rise, inexorable deep!

Anah.
And must we die?
And must I lose thee too,
Azaziel?
Oh, my heart! my heart!
Thy prophecies were true!
And yet thou wert so happy too!
The blow, though not unlooked for, falls as new:
But yet depart!
Ah! why?
Yet let me not retain thee—fly!
My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be
Eternal, if repulsed from Heaven for me.
Too much already hast thou deigned
To one of Adam's race!
Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone,
But to the Spirits who have not disdained
To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace.
The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurled
From his once archangelic throne
Into some unknown world:
And thou, Azaziel! No—
Thou shalt not suffer woe
For me. Away! nor weep!
Thou canst not weep; but yet
May'st suffer more, not weeping: then forget
Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling deep
Can bring no pang like this. Fly! fly!
Being gone, 'twill be less difficult to die.

Japh.
Oh say not so!
Father! and thou, archangel, thou!
Surely celestial mercy lurks below
That pure severe serenity of brow:
Let them not meet this sea without a shore,
Save in our ark, or let me be no more!

Noah.
Peace, child of passion, peace!
If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue
Do God no wrong!
Live as he wills it—die, when he ordains,
A righteous death, unlike the seed of Cain's.
Cease, or be sorrowful in silence; cease
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish plaint.
Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee?
Such would it be
To alter his intent
For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man!
And bear what Adam's race must bear, and can.

Japh.
Aye, father! but when they are gone,
And we are all alone,
Floating upon the azure desert, and
The depth beneath us hides our own dear land,
And dearer, silent friends and brethren, all
Buried in its immeasurable breast,
Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then command?
Can we in Desolation's peace have rest?
Oh God! be thou a God, and spare
Yet while 'tis time!
Renew not Adam's fall:
Mankind were then but twain,
But they are numerous now as are the waves
And the tremendous rain,
Whose drops shall be less thick than would their graves,
Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain.

Noah.
Silence, vain boy! each word of thine's a crime.
Angel! forgive this stripling's fond despair.

Raph.
Seraphs! these mortals speak in passion: Ye!
Who are, or should be, passionless and pure,
May now return with me.

Sam.
It may not be:
We have chosen, and will endure.

Raph.
Say'st thou?

Aza.
He hath said it, and I say, Amen!

Raph.
Again!
Then from this hour,
Shorn as ye are of all celestial power,
And aliens from your God,
Farewell!

Japh.
Alas! where shall they dwell?
Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still,
Are howling from the mountain's bosom:
There's not a breath of wind upon the hill,
Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom:
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

Noah.
Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry!
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,
Even when the waters waxed too fierce to brave.
Soon it shall be their only shore,
And then, no more!

Japh.
The sun! the sun!
He riseth, but his better light is gone;
And a black circle, bound
His glaring disk around,
Proclaims Earth's last of summer days hath shone!
The clouds return into the hues of night,
Save where their brazen-coloured edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.

Noah.
And lo! yon flash of light,
The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!
It cometh! hence, away!
Leave to the elements their evil prey!
Hence to where our all-hallowed ark uprears
Its safe and wreckless sides!

Japh.
Oh, father, stay!
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides!

Noah.
Must we not leave all life to such? Begone!

Japh.
Not I.

Noah.
Then die
With them!
How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison
With just Jehovah's wrath!

Japh.
Can rage and justice join in the same path?

Noah.
Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now!

Raph.
Patriarch, be still a father! smooth thy brow:
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink:
He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink
With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters;
But be, when passion passeth, good as thou,
Nor perish like Heaven's children with man's daughters.

Aho.
The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite
For the annihilation of all life.
Unequal is the strife
Between our strength and the Eternal Might!

Sam.
But ours is with thee; we will bear ye far
To some untroubled star,
Where thou, and Anah, shalt partake our lot:
And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth,
Our forfeit Heaven shall also be forgot.

Anah.
Oh! my dear father's tents, my place of birth,
And mountains, land, and woods! when ye are not,
Who shall dry up my tears?

Aza.
Thy spirit-lord.
Fear not; though we are shut from Heaven,
Yet much is ours, whence we can not be driven.

Raph.
Rebel! thy words are wicked, as thy deeds
Shall henceforth be but weak: the flaming sword,
Which chased the first-born out of Paradise,
Still flashes in the angelic hands.

Aza.
It cannot slay us: threaten dust with death,
And talk of weapons unto that which bleeds.
What are thy swords in our immortal eyes?

Raph.
The moment cometh to approve thy strength;
And learn at length
How vain to war with what thy God commands:
Thy former force was in thy faith.

Enter Mortals, flying for refuge.
Chorus of Mortals.
The heavens and earth are mingling—God! oh God!
What have we done? Yet spare!
Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer!
The dragon crawls from out his den,
To herd, in terror, innocent with men;
And the birds scream their agony through air.
Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod
Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair!
Hear not man only but all nature plead!

Raph.
Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of clay,
I cannot, must not, aid you. 'Tis decreed!

[Exit Raphael.
Japh.
Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey,
While others, fixed as rocks, await the word
At which their wrathful vials shall be poured.
No azure more shall robe the firmament,
Nor spangled stars be glorious: Death hath risen:
In the Sun's place a pale and ghastly glare
Hath wound itself around the dying air.

Aza.
Come, Anah! quit this chaos-founded prison,
To which the elements again repair,
To turn it into what it was: beneath
The shelter of these wings thou shalt be safe,
As was the eagle's nestling once within
Its mother's.—Let the coming chaos chafe
With all its elements! Heed not their din!
A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe
Ethereal life, will we explore:
These darkened clouds are not the only skies.

[Azaziel and Samiasa fly off, and disappear with Anah and Aholibamah.
Japh.
They are gone! They have disappeared amidst the roar
Of the forsaken world; and never more,
Whether they live, or die with all Earth's life,
Now near its last, can aught restore
Anah unto these eyes.

Chorus of Mortals.
Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind!
What! wilt thou leave us all—all—all behind?
While safe amidst the elemental strife,
Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark?

A Mother
(offering her infant to Japhet).
Oh, let this child embark!
I brought him forth in woe,
But thought it joy
To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?
What hath he done—
My unweaned son—
To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn?
What is there in this milk of mine, that Death
Should stir all Heaven and Earth up to destroy
My boy,
And roll the waters o'er his placid breath?
Save him, thou seed of Seth!
Or curséd be—with him who made
Thee and thy race, for which we are betrayed!

Japh.
Peace! 'tis no hour for curses, but for prayer!

Chorus of Mortals.
For prayer!!!
And where
Shall prayer ascend,
When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend
And burst,
And gushing oceans every barrier rend,
Until the very deserts know no thirst?
Accursed
Be he who made thee and thy sire!
We deem our curses vain; we must expire;
But as we know the worst,
Why should our hymns be raised, our knees be bent
Before the implacable Omnipotent,
Since we must fall the same?
If he hath made Earth, let it be his shame,
To make a world for torture.—Lo! they come,
The loathsome waters, in their rage!
And with their roar make wholesome nature dumb!
The forest's trees (coeval with the hour
When Paradise upsprung,
Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,
Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung),
So massy, vast, yet green in their old age,
Are overtopped,
Their summer blossoms by the surges lopped,
Which rise, and rise, and rise.
Vainly we look up to the lowering skies—
They meet the seas,
And shut out God from our beseeching eyes.
Fly, son of Noah, fly! and take thine ease,
In thine allotted ocean-tent;
And view, all floating o'er the element,
The corpses of the world of thy young days:
Then to Jehovah raise
Thy song of praise!

A Mortal.
Blesséd are the dead
Who die in the Lord!
And though the waters be o'er earth outspread,
Yet, as his word,
Be the decree adored!
He gave me life—he taketh but
The breath which is his own:
And though these eyes should be for ever shut,
Nor longer this weak voice before his throne
Be heard in supplicating tone,
Still blesséd be the Lord,
For what is past,
For that which is:
For all are his,
From first to last—
Time—Space—Eternity—Life—Death—
The vast known and immeasurable unknown.
He made, and can unmake;
And shall I, for a little gasp of breath,
Blaspheme and groan?
No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith,
Nor quiver, though the Universe may quake!

Chorus of Mortals.
Where shall we fly?
Not to the mountains high;
For now their torrents rush, with double roar,
To meet the Ocean, which, advancing still,
Already grasps each drowning hill,
Nor leaves an unsearched cave.

Enter a Woman.
Woman.
Oh, save me, save!
Our valley is no more:
My father and my father's tent,
My brethren and my brethren's herds,
The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent,
And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds,
The little rivulet which freshened all
Our pastures green,
No more are to be seen.
When to the mountain cliff I climbed this morn,
I turned to bless the spot,
And not a leaf appeared about to fall;—
And now they are not!—
Why was I born?

Japh.
To die! in youth to die!
And happier in that doom,
Than to behold the universal tomb,
Which I
Am thus condemned to weep above in vain.
Why, when all perish, why must I remain?

[The waters rise; Men fly in every direction; many are overtaken by the waves: the Chorus of Mortals disperses in search of safety up the mountains: Japhet remains upon a rock, while the Ark floats towards him in the distance.

WERNER;

OR, THE INHERITANCE: A TRAGEDY.

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE, BY ONE OF HIS HUMBLEST ADMIRERS, THIS TRAGEDY IS DEDICATED.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

• Werner.
• Ulric.
• Stralenheim.
• Idenstein.
• Gabor.
• Fritz.
• Henrick.
• Eric.
• Arnheim.
• Meister.
• Rodolph.
• Ludwig.

WOMEN.

• Josephine.
• Ida Stralenheim.

Scene—Partly on the Frontier of Silesia, and partly in Siegendorf Castle, near Prague.
Time—The Close of the Thirty Years' War.

ACT I.

Scene I.

—The Hall of a decayed Palace near a small Town on the Northern Frontier of Silesia—the Night tempestuous.
Werner and Josephine, his Wife.
Jos.
My love, be calmer!

Wer.
I am calm.

Jos.
To me—
Yes, but not to thyself: thy pace is hurried,
And no one walks a chamber like to ours,
With steps like thine, when his heart is at rest.
Were it a garden, I should deem thee happy,
And stepping with the bee from flower to flower;
But here!

Wer.
'Tis chill; the tapestry lets through
The wind to which it waves: my blood is frozen.

Jos.
Ah, no!

Wer.
(smiling).
Why! wouldst thou have it so?

Jos.
I would
Have it a healthful current.

Wer.
Let it flow
Until 'tis spilt or checked—how soon, I care not.

Jos.
And am I nothing in thy heart?

Wer.
All-all.

Jos.
Then canst thou wish for that which must break mine?

Wer.
(approaching her slowly).
[Werner walks on abruptly, and then approaches Josephine.

Jos.
To see thee well is much—
To see thee happy—

Wer.
Where hast thou seen such?
Let me be wretched with the rest!

Jos.
But think
How many in this hour of tempest shiver
Beneath the biting wind and heavy rain,
Whose every drop bows them down nearer earth,
Which hath no chamber for them save beneath
Her surface.

Wer.
And that's not the worst: who cares
For chambers? rest is all. The wretches whom
Thou namest—aye, the wind howls round them, and
The dull and dropping rain saps in their bones
The creeping marrow. I have been a soldier,
A hunter, and a traveller, and am
A beggar, and should know the thing thou talk'st of.

Jos.
And art thou not now sheltered from them all?

Wer.
Yes. And from these alone.

Jos.
And that is something.

Wer.
True—to a peasant.

Jos.
Should the nobly born
Be thankless for that refuge which their habits
Of early delicacy render more
Needful than to the peasant, when the ebb
Of fortune leaves them on the shoals of life?

Wer.
It is not that, thou know'st it is not: we
Have borne all this, I'll not say patiently,
Except in thee—but we have borne it.

Jos.
Well?

Wer.
Something beyond our outward sufferings (though
These were enough to gnaw into our souls)
Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, now.
When, but for this untoward sickness, which
Seized me upon this desolate frontier, and
Hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means,
And leaves us—no! this is beyond me!—but
For this I had been happy—thou been happy—
The splendour of my rank sustained—my name—
My father's name—been still upheld; and, more
Than those—

Jos.
(abruptly).
My son—our son—our Ulric,
Been clasped again in these long-empty arms,
And all a mother's hunger satisfied.
Twelve years! he was but eight then:—beautiful
He was, and beautiful he must be now,
My Ulric! my adored!

Wer.
I have been full oft
The chase of Fortune; now she hath o'ertaken
My spirit where it cannot turn at bay,—
Sick, poor, and lonely.

Jos.
Lonely! my dear husband?

Wer.
Or worse—involving all I love, in this
Far worse than solitude. Alone, I had died,
And all been over in a nameless grave.

Jos.
And I had not outlived thee; but pray take
Comfort! We have struggled long; and they who strive
With Fortune win or weary her at last,
So that they find the goal or cease to feel
Further. Take comfort,—we shall find our boy.

Wer.
We were in sight of him, of every thing
Which could bring compensation for past sorrow—
And to be baffled thus!

Jos.
We are not baffled.

Wer.
Are we not penniless?

Jos.
We ne'er were wealthy.

Wer.
But I was born to wealth, and rank, and power;
Enjoyed them, loved them, and, alas! abused them,
And forfeited them by my father's wrath,
In my o'er-fervent youth: but for the abuse
Long-sufferings have atoned. My father's death
Left the path open, yet not without snares.
This cold and creeping kinsman, who so long
Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon
The fluttering bird, hath ere this time outstept me,
Become the master of my rights, and lord
Of that which lifts him up to princes in
Dominion and domain.

Jos.
Who knows? our son
May have returned back to his grandsire, and
Even now uphold thy rights for thee?

Wer.
'Tis hopeless.
Since his strange disappearance from my father's,
Entailing, as it were, my sins upon
Himself, no tidings have revealed his course.
I parted with him to his grandsire, on
The promise that his anger would stop short
Of the third generation; but Heaven seems
To claim her stern prerogative, and visit
Upon my boy his father's faults and follies.

Jos.
I must hope better still,—at least we have yet
Baffled the long pursuit of Stralenheim.

Wer.
We should have done, but for this fatal sickness;—
More fatal than a mortal malady,
Because it takes not life, but life's sole solace:
Even now I feel my spirit girt about
By the snares of this avaricious fiend:—
How do I know he hath not tracked us here?

Jos.
He does not know thy person; and his spies,
Who so long watched thee, have been left at Hamburgh.
Our unexpected journey, and this change
Of name, leaves all discovery far behind:
None hold us here for aught save what we seem.

Wer.
Save what we seem! save what we are—sick beggars,
Even to our very hopes.—Ha! ha!

Jos.
Alas!
That bitter laugh!

Wer.
Who would read in this form
The high soul of the son of a long line?
Who, in this garb, the heir of princely lands?
Who, in this sunken, sickly eye, the pride
Of rank and ancestry? In this worn cheek
And famine-hollowed brow, the Lord of halls
Which daily feast a thousand vassals?

Jos.
You
Pondered not thus upon these worldly things,
My Werner! when you deigned to choose for bride
The foreign daughter of a wandering exile.

Wer.
An exile's daughter with an outcast son,
Were a fit marriage: but I still had hopes
To lift thee to the state we both were born for.
Your father's house was noble, though decayed;
And worthy by its birth to match with ours.

Jos.
Your father did not think so, though 'twas noble;
But had my birth been all my claim to match
With thee, I should have deemed it what it is.

Wer.
And what is that in thine eyes?

Jos.
All which it
Has done in our behalf,—nothing.

Wer.
How,—nothing?

Jos.
Or worse; for it has been a canker in
Thy heart from the beginning: but for this,
We had not felt our poverty but as
Millions of myriads feel it—cheerfully;
But for these phantoms of thy feudal fathers,
Thou mightst have earned thy bread, as thousands earn it;
Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce,
Or other civic means, to amend thy fortunes.

Wer.
(ironically).
And been an Hanseatic burgher? Excellent!

Jos.
Whate'er thou mightest have been, to me thou art
What no state high or low can ever change,
My heart's first choice;—which chose thee, knowing neither
Thy birth, thy hopes, thy pride; nought, save thy sorrows:
While they last, let me comfort or divide them:
When they end—let mine end with them, or thee!

Wer.
My better angel! Such I have ever found thee;
This rashness, or this weakness of my temper,
Ne'er raised a thought to injure thee or thine.
Thou didst not mar my fortunes: my own nature
In youth was such as to unmake an empire,
Had such been my inheritance; but now,
Chastened, subdued, out-worn, and taught to know
Myself,—to lose this for our son and thee!
Trust me, when, in my two-and-twentieth spring,
My father barred me from my father's house,
The last sole scion of a thousand sires
(For I was then the last), it hurt me less
Than to behold my boy and my boy's mother
Excluded in their innocence from what
My faults deserved—exclusion; although then
My passions were all living serpents, and
Twined like the Gorgon's round me.

[A loud knocking is heard.
Jos.
Hark!

Wer.
A knocking!

Jos.
Who can it be at this lone hour? We have
Few visitors.

Wer.
And poverty hath none,
Save those who come to make it poorer still.
Well—I am prepared.

[Werner puts his hand into his bosom, as if to search for some weapon.
Jos.
Oh! do not look so. I
Will to the door. It cannot be of import
In this lone spot of wintry desolation:—
The very desert saves man from mankind.

[She goes to the door.
Enter Idenstein.
Iden.
A fair good evening to my fair hostess
And worthy—What's your name, my friend?

Wer.
Are you
Not afraid to demand it?

Iden.
Not afraid?
Egad! I am afraid. You look as if
I asked for something better than your name,
By the face you put on it.

Wer.
Better, sir!

Iden.
Better or worse, like matrimony: what
Shall I say more? You have been a guest this month
Here in the prince's palace—(to be sure,
His Highness had resigned it to the ghosts
And rats these twelve years—but 'tis still a palace)—
I say you have been our lodger, and as yet
We do not know your name.

Wer.
My name is Werner.

Iden.
A goodly name, a very worthy name,
As e'er was gilt upon a trader's board:
I have a cousin in the lazaretto
Of Hamburgh, who has got a wife who bore
The same. He is an officer of trust,
Surgeon's assistant (hoping to be surgeon),
And has done miracles i' the way of business.
Perhaps you are related to my relative?

Wer.
To yours?

Jos.
Oh, yes; we are, but distantly.
(Aside to Werner.)
Cannot you humour the dull gossip till
We learn his purpose?

Iden.
Well, I'm glad of that;
I thought so all along, such natural yearnings
Played round my heart:—blood is not water, cousin;
And so let's have some wine, and drink unto
Our better acquaintance: relatives should be
Friends.

Wer.
You appear to have drunk enough already;
And if you have not, I've no wine to offer,
Else it were yours: but this you know, or should know:
You see I am poor, and sick, and will not see
That I would be alone; but to your business!
What brings you here?

Iden.
Why, what should bring me here?

Wer.
I know not, though I think that I could guess
That which will send you hence.

Jos.
(aside).
Patience, dear Werner!

Iden.
You don't know what has happened, then?

Jos.
How should we?

Iden.
The river has o'erflowed.

Jos.
Alas! we have known
That to our sorrow for these five days; since
It keeps us here.

Iden.
But what you don't know is,
That a great personage, who fain would cross
Against the stream and three postilions' wishes,
Is drowned below the ford, with five post-horses,
A monkey, and a mastiff—and a valet.

Jos.
Poor creatures! are you sure?

Iden.
Yes, of the monkey,
And the valet, and the cattle; but as yet
We know not if his Excellency's dead
Or no; your noblemen are hard to drown,
As it is fit that men in office should be;
But what is certain is, that he has swallowed
Enough of the Oder to have burst two peasants;
And now a Saxon and Hungarian traveller,
Who, at their proper peril, snatched him from
The whirling river, have sent on to crave
A lodging, or a grave, according as
It may turn out with the live or dead body.

Jos.
And where will you receive him? here, I hope,
If we can be of service—say the word.

Iden.
Here? no; but in the Prince's own apartment,
As fits a noble guest:—'tis damp, no doubt,
Not having been inhabited these twelve years;
But then he comes from a much damper place,
So scarcely will catch cold in't, if he be
Still liable to cold—and if not, why
He'll be worse lodged to-morrow: ne'ertheless,
I have ordered fire and all appliances
To be got ready for the worst—that is,
In case he should survive,

Jos.
Poor gentleman!
I hope he will, with all my heart.

Wer.
Intendant,
Have you not learned his name? (Aside to his wife.)
My Josephine,
Retire: I'll sift this fool.

[Exit Josephine.
Iden.
His name? oh Lord!
Who knows if he hath now a name or no?
'Tis time enough to ask it when he's able
To give an answer; or if not, to put
His heir's upon his epitaph. Methought
Just now you chid me for demanding names?

Wer.
True, true, I did so: you say well and wisely.

Enter Gabor.
Gab.
If I intrude, I crave—

Iden.
Oh, no intrusion!
This is the palace; this a stranger like
Yourself; I pray you make yourself at home:
But where's his Excellency? and how fares he?

Gab.
Wetly and wearily, but out of peril:
He paused to change his garments in a cottage
(Where I doffed mine for these, and came on hither),
And has almost recovered from his drenching.
He will be here anon.

Iden.
What ho, there! bustle!
Without there, Herman, Weilburg, Peter, Conrad!
[Gives directions to different servants who enter.
A nobleman sleeps here to-night—see that
All is in order in the damask chamber—
Keep up the stove—I will myself to the cellar—
And Madame Idenstein (my consort, stranger,)
Shall furnish forth the bed-apparel; for,
To say the truth, they are marvellous scant of this
Within the palace precincts, since his Highness
Left it some dozen years ago. And then
His Excellency will sup, doubtless?

Gab.
Faith!
I cannot tell; but I should think the pillow
Would please him better than the table, after
His soaking in your river: but for fear
Your viands should be thrown away, I mean
To sup myself, and have a friend without
Who will do honour to your good cheer with
A traveller's appetite.

Iden.
But are you sure
His Excellency—But his name: what is it?

Gab.
I do not know.

Iden.
And yet you saved his life.

Gab.
I helped my friend to do so.

Iden.
Well, that's strange,
To save a man's life whom you do not know.

Gab.
Not so; for there are some I know so well,
I scarce should give myself the trouble.

Iden.
Pray,
Good friend, and who may you be?

Gab.
By my family,
Hungarian.

Iden.
Which is called?

Gab.
It matters little.

Iden.
(aside).
I think that all the world are grown anonymous,
Since no one cares to tell me what he's called!
Pray, has his Excellency a large suite?

Gab.
Sufficient.

Iden.
How many?

Gab.
I did not count them.
We came up by mere accident, and just
In time to drag him through his carriage window.

Iden.
Well, what would I give to save a great man!
No doubt you'll have a swingeing sum as recompense.

Gab.
Perhaps.

Iden.
Now, how much do you reckon on?

Gab.
I have not yet put up myself to sale:
In the mean time, my best reward would be
A glass of your Hockcheimer—a green glass,
Wreathed with rich grapes and Bacchanal devices,
O'erflowing with the oldest of your vintage:
For which I promise you, in case you e'er
Run hazard of being drowned, (although I own
It seems, of all deaths, the least likely for you,)
I'll pull you out for nothing. Quick, my friend,
And think, for every bumper I shall quaff,
A wave the less may roll above your head.

Iden.
(aside).
I don't much like this fellow—close and dry
He seems,—two things which suit me not; however,
Wine he shall have; if that unlocks him not,
I shall not sleep to-night for curiosity.

[Exit Idenstein.
Gab.
(to Werner).
This master of the ceremonies is
The intendant of the palace, I presume:
'Tis a fine building, but decayed.

Wer.
The apartment
Designed for him you rescued will be found
In fitter order for a sickly guest.

Gab.
I wonder then you occupied it not,
For you seem delicate in health.

Wer.
(quickly).
Sir!

Gab.
Pray
Excuse me: have I said aught to offend you?

Wer.
Nothing: but we are strangers to each other.

Gab.
And that's the reason I would have us less so:
I thought our bustling guest without had said
You were a chance and passing guest, the counterpart
Of me and my companions.

Wer.
Very true.

Gab.
Then, as we never met before, and never,
It may be, may again encounter, why,
I thought to cheer up this old dungeon here
(At least to me) by asking you to share
The fare of my companions and myself.

Wer.
Pray, pardon me; my health—

Gab.
Even as you please.
I have been a soldier, and perhaps am blunt
In bearing.

Wer.
I have also served, and can
Requite a soldier's greeting.

Gab.
In what service?
The Imperial?

Wer.
(quickly, and then interrupting himself).
I commanded—no—I mean
I served; but it is many years ago,
When first Bohemia raised her banner 'gainst
The Austrian.

Gab.
Well, that's over now, and peace
Has turned some thousand gallant hearts adrift
To live as they best may: and, to say truth,
Some take the shortest.

Wer.
What is that?

Gab.
Whate'er
They lay their hands on. All Silesia and
Lusatia's woods are tenanted by bands
Of the late troops, who levy on the country
Their maintenance: the Chatelains must keep
Their castle walls—beyond them 'tis but doubtful
Travel for your rich Count or full-blown Baron.
My comfort is that, wander where I may,
I've little left to lose now.

Wer.
And I—nothing.

Gab.
That's harder still. You say you were a soldier.

Wer.
I was.

Gab.
You look one still. All soldiers are
Or should be comrades, even though enemies.
Our swords when drawn must cross, our engines aim
(While levelled) at each other's hearts; but when
A truce, a peace, or what you will, remits
The steel into its scabbard, and lets sleep
The spark which lights the matchlock, we are brethren.
You are poor and sickly—I am not rich, but healthy;
I want for nothing which I cannot want;
You seem devoid of this—wilt share it?

[Gabor pulls out his purse.
Wer.
Who
Told you I was a beggar?

Gab.
You yourself,
In saying you were a soldier during peace-time.

Wer.
(looking at him with suspicion).
You know me not.

Gab.
I know no man, not even
Myself: how should I then know one I ne'er
Beheld till half an hour since?

Wer.
Sir, I thank you.
Your offer's noble were it to a friend,
And not unkind as to an unknown stranger,
Though scarcely prudent; but no less I thank you.
I am a beggar in all save his trade;
And when I beg of any one, it shall be
Of him who was the first to offer what
Few can obtain by asking. Pardon me.

[Exit Werner.
Gab.
(solus).
A goodly fellow by his looks, though worn
As most good fellows are, by pain or pleasure,
Which tear life out of us before our time;
I scarce know which most quickly: but he seems
To have seen better days, as who has not
Who has seen yesterday?—But here approaches
Our sage intendant, with the wine: however,
For the cup's sake I'll bear the cupbearer.

Enter Idenstein.
Iden.
'Tis here! the supernaculum! twenty years
Of age, if 'tis a day.

Gab.
Which epoch makes
Young women and old wine; and 'tis great pity,
Of two such excellent things, increase of years,
Which still improves the one, should spoil the other.
Fill full—Here's to our hostess!—your fair wife!

[Takes the glass.
Iden.
Fair!—Well, I trust your taste in wine is equal
To that you show for beauty; but I pledge you
Nevertheless.

Gab.
Is not the lovely woman
I met in the adjacent hall, who, with
An air, and port, and eye, which would have better
Beseemed this palace in its brightest days
(Though in a garb adapted to its present
Abandonment), returned my salutation—
Is not the same your spouse?

Iden.
I would she were!
But you're mistaken:—that's the stranger's wife.

Gab.
And by her aspect she might be a Prince's;
Though time hath touched her too, she still retains
Much beauty, and more majesty.

Iden.
And that
Is more than I can say for Madame Idenstein,
At least in beauty: as for majesty,
She has some of its properties which might
Be spared—but never mind!

Gab.
I don't. But who
May be this stranger? He too hath a bearing
Above his outward fortunes.

Iden.
There I differ.
He's poor as Job, and not so patient; but
Who he may be, or what, or aught of him,
Except his name (and that I only learned
To-night), I know not.

Gab.
But how came he here?

Iden.
In a most miserable old caleche,
About a month since, and immediately
Fell sick, almost to death. He should have died.

Gab.
Tender and true!—but why?

Iden.
Why, what is life
Without a living? He has not a stiver.

Gab.
In that case, I much wonder that a person
Of your apparent prudence should admit
Cœsts so forlorn into this noble mansion.

Iden.
That's true: but pity, as you know, does make
One's heart commit these follies; and besides,
They had some valuables left at that time,
Which paid their way up to the present hour;
And so I thought they might as well be lodged
Here as at the small tavern, and I gave them
The run of some of the oldest palace rooms.
They served to air them, at the least as long
As they could pay for firewood.

Gab.
Poor souls!

Iden.
Aye,
Exceeding poor.

Gab.
And yet unused to poverty,
If I mistake not. Whither were they going?

Iden.
Oh! Heaven knows where, unless to Heaven itself.
Some days ago that looked the likeliest journey
For Werner.

Gab.
Werner! I have heard the name.
But it may be a feigned one.

Iden.
Like enough!
But hark! a noise of wheels and voices, and
A blaze of torches from without. As sure
As destiny, his Excellency's come.
I must be at my post; will you not join me,
To help him from his carriage, and present
Your humble duty at the door?

Gab.
I dragged him
From out that carriage when he would have given
His barony or county to repel
The rushing river from his gurgling throat.
He has valets now enough: they stood aloof then,
Shaking their dripping ears upon the shore,
All roaring “Help!” but offering none; and as
For duty (as you call it)—I did mine then,
Now do yours. Hence, and bow and cringe him here!

Iden.
I cringe!—but I shall lose the opportunity—
Plague take it! he'll be here, and I not there!

[Exit Idenstein hashily.
Re-enter Werner.
Wer.
(to himself).
[Perceiving Gabor.

Gab.
Sir, you seem rapt;
And yet the time is not akin to thought.
These old walls will be noisy soon. The baron,
Or count (or whatsoe'er this half drowned noble
May be), for whom this desolate village and
Its lone inhabitants show more respect
Than did the elements, is come.

Iden.
(without).
This way—
This way, your Excellency:—have a care,
The staircase is a little gloomy, and
Somewhat decayed; but if we had expected
So high a guest—Pray take my arm, my Lord!

Enter Stralenheim, Idenstein, and Attendants—partly his own, and partly Retainers of the Domain of which Idenstein is Intendant.
Stral.
I'll rest here a moment.

Iden.
(to the servants).
Ho! a chair!
Instantly, knaves.

[Stralenheim sits down.
Wer.
(aside).
'Tis he!

Stral.
I'm better now.
Who are these strangers?

Iden.
Please you, my good Lord,
One says he is no stranger.

Wer.
(aloud and hastily).
Who says that?

[They look at him with surprise.
Iden.
Why, no one spoke of you, or to you!—but
Here's one his Excellency may be pleased
To recognise.

[Pointing to Gabor.
Gab.
I seek not to disturb
His noble memory.

Stral.
I apprehend
This is one of the strangers to whose aid
I owe my rescue. Is not that the other?
[Pointing to Werner.
My state when I was succoured must excuse
My uncertainty to whom I owe so much.

Iden.
He!—no, my Lord! he rather wants for rescue
Than can afford it. 'Tis a poor sick man,
Travel-tired, and lately risen from a bed
From whence he never dreamed to rise.

Stral.
Methought
That there were two.

Gab.
There were, in company;
But, in the service rendered to your Lordship,
I needs must say but one, and he is absent.
The chief part of whatever aid was rendered
Was his: it was his fortune to be first.
My will was not inferior, but his strength
And youth outstripped me; therefore do not waste
Your thanks on me. I was but a glad second
Unto a nobler principal.

Stral.
Where is he?

An Atten.
My Lord, he tarried in the cottage where
Your Excellency rested for an hour,
And said he would be here to-morrow.

Stral.
Till
That hour arrives, I can but offer thanks,
And then—

Gab.
I seek no more, and scarce deserve
So much. My comrade may speak for himself.

Stral.
(fixing his eyes upon Werner: then aside).
[He pauses and looks at Werner: then resumus.

Iden.
Your Lordship seems
Pensive. Will it not please you to pass on?

Stral.
'Tis past fatigue, which gives my weighed-down spirit
An outward show of thought. I will to rest.

Iden.
(Aside).

Stral.
(rising and turning to Gabor).
Good night, good people! Sir, I trust to-morrow
Will find me apter to requite your service.
In the meantime I crave your company
A moment in my chamber.

Gab.
I attend you.

Stral.
(after a few steps, pauses, and calls Werner).
Friend!

Wer.
Sir!

Iden.
Sir! Lord—oh Lord! Why don't you say
His Lordship, or his Excellency? Pray,
My Lord, excuse this poor man's want of breeding:
He hath not been accustomed to admission
To such a presence.

Stral.
(to Idenstein).
Peace, intendant!

Iden.
Oh!
I am dumb.

Stral.
(to Werner).
Have you been long here?

Wer.
Long?

Stral.
I sought
An answer, not an echo.

Wer.
You may seek
Both from the walls. I am not used to answer
Those whom I know not.

Stral.
Indeed! Ne'er the less,
You might reply with courtesy to what
Is asked in kindness.

Wer.
When I know it such
I will requite—that is, reply—in unison.

Stral.
The intendant said, you had been detained by sickness—
If I could aid you—journeying the same way?

Wer.
(quickly).
I am not journeying the same way!

Stral.
How know ye
That, ere you know my route?

Wer.
Because there is
But one way that the rich and poor must tread
Together. You diverged from that dread path
Some hours ago, and I some days: henceforth
Our roads must lie asunder, though they tend
All to one home.

Stral.
Your language is above
Your station.

Wer.
(bitterly).
Is it?

Stral.
Or, at least, beyond
Your garb.

Wer.
'Tis well that it is not beneath it,
As sometimes happens to the better clad.
But, in a word, what would you with me?

Stral.
(startled).
I?

Wer.
Yes—you! You know me not, and question me,
And wonder that I answer not—not knowing
My inquisitor. Explain what you would have,
And then I'll satisfy yourself, or me.

Stral.
I knew not that you had reasons for reserve.

Wer.
Many have such:—Have you none?

Stral.
None which can
Interest a mere stranger.

Wer.
Then forgive
The same unknown and humble stranger, if
He wishes to remain so to the man
Who can have nought in common with him.

Stral.
Sir,
I will not balk your humour, though untoward:
I only meant you service—but good night!
Intendant, show the way! (To Gabor.)
Sir, you will with me?

[Exeunt Stralenheim and Attendants; Idenstein and Gabor.
Wer.
(solus).
'Tis he! I am taken in the toils. Before
I quitted Hamburg, Giulio, his late steward,
Informed me, that he had obtained an order
From Brandenburg's elector, for the arrest
Of Kruitzner (such the name I then bore) when
I came upon the frontier; the free city
Alone preserved my freedom—till I left
Its walls—fool that I was to quit them! But
I deemed this humble garb, and route obscure,
Had baffled the slow hounds in their pursuit.
What's to be done? He knows me not by person;
Nor could aught, save the eye of apprehension,
Have recognised him, after twenty years—
We met so rarely and so coldly in
Our youth. But those about him! Now I can
Divine the frankness of the Hungarian, who
No doubt is a mere tool and spy of Stralenheim's,
To sound and to secure me. Without means!
Sick, poor—begirt too with the flooding rivers,
Impassable even to the wealthy, with
All the appliances which purchase modes
Of overpowering peril, with men's lives,—
How can I hope! An hour ago methought
My state beyond despair; and now, 'tis such,
The past seems paradise. Another day,
And I'm detected,—on the very eve
Of honours, rights, and my inheritance,
When a few drops of gold might save me still
In favouring an escape.

Enter Idenstein and Fritz in conversation.
Fritz.
Immediately.

Iden.
I tell you, 'tis impossible.

Fritz.
It must
Be tried, however; and if one express
Fail, you must send on others, till the answer
Anives from Frankfort, from the commandant.

Iden.
I will do what I can.

Fritz.
And recollect
To spare no trouble; you will be repaid
Tenfold.

Iden.
The Baron is retired to rest?

Fritz.
He hath thrown himself into an easy chair
Beside the fire, and slumbers; and has ordered
He may not be disturbed until eleven,
When he will take himself to bed.

Iden.
Before
An hour is past I'll do my best to serve him.

Fritz.
Remember!

[Exit Fritz.
Iden.
The devil take these great men! they
Think all things made for them. Now here must I
Rouse up some half a dozen shivering vassals
From their scant pallets, and, at peril of
Their lives, despatch them o'er the river towards
Frankfort. Methinks the Baron's own experience
Some hours ago might teach him fellow-feeling:
But no, “it must,” and there's an end. How now?
Are you there, Mynheer Werner?

Wer.
You have left
Your noble guest right quickly.

Iden.
Yes—he's dozing,
And seems to like that none should sleep besides.
Here is a packet for the Commandant
Of Frankfort, at all risks and all expenses;
But I must not lose time: Good night!

[Exit Iden.
Wer.
[Werner looks around, and snatches up a knife lying on a table in a recess.

[Werner draws a panel, and exit, closing it after him.
Enter Gabor and Josephine.
Gab.
Where is your husband?

Jos.
Here, I thought: I left him
Not long since in his chamber. But these rooms
Have many outlets, and he may be gone
To accompany the Intendant.

Gab.
Baron Stralenheim
Put many questions to the Intendant on
The subject of your lord, and, to be plain,
I have my doubts if he means well.

Jos.
Alas!
What can there be in common with the proud
And wealthy Baron, and the unknown Werner?

Gab.
That you know best.

Jos.
Or, if it were so, how
Come you to stir yourself in his behalf,
Rather than that of him whose life you saved?

Gab.
I helped to save him, as in peril; but
I did not pledge myself to serve him in
Oppression. I know well these nobles, and
Their thousand modes of trampling on the poor.
I have proved them; and my spirit boils up when
I find them practising against the weak:—
This is my only motive.

Jos.
It would be
Not easy to persuade my consort of
Your good intentions.

Gab.
Is he so suspicious?

Jos.
He was not once; but time and troubles have
Made him what you beheld.

Gab.
I'm sorry for it.
Suspicion is a heavy armour, and
With its own weight impedes more than protects.
Good night! I trust to meet with him at day-break.

[Exit Gabor.
Re-enter Idenstein and some Peasants. Josephine retires up the Hall.
First Peasant.
But if I'm drowned?

Iden.
Why, you will be well paid for 't,
And have risked more than drowning for as much,
I doubt not.

Second Peasant.
But our wives and families?

Iden.
Cannot be worse off than they are, and may
Be better.

Third Peasant.
I have neither, and will venture.

Iden.
That's right. A gallant carle, and fit to be
A soldier. I'll promote you to the ranks
In the Prince's body-guard—if you succeed:
And you shall have besides, in sparkling coin,
Two thalers.

Third Peasant.
No more!

Iden.
Out upon your avarice!
Can that low vice alloy so much ambition?
I tell thee, fellow, that two thalers in
Small change will subdivide into a treasure.
Do not five hundred thousand heroes daily
Risk lives and souls for the tithe of one thaler?
When had you half the sum?

Third Peasant.
Never—but ne'er
The less I must have three.

Iden.
Have you forgot
Whose vassal you were born, knave?

Third Peasant.
No—the Prince's,
And not the stranger's.

Iden.
Sirrah! in the Prince's
Absence, I am sovereign; and the Baron is
My intimate connection;—“Cousin Idenstein!
(Quoth he) you'll order out a dozen villains.”
And so, you villains! troop—march—march, I say;
And if a single dog's ear of this packet
Be sprinkled by the Oder—look to it!
For every page of paper, shall a hide
Of yours be stretched as parchment on a drum,
Like Ziska's skin, to beat alarm to all
Refractory vassals, who can not effect
Impossibilities.—Away, ye earth-worms!

[Exit, driving them out.
Jos.
(coming forward).
I fain would shun these scenes, too oft repeated,
Of feudal tyranny o'er petty victims;
I cannot aid, and will not witness such.
Even here, in this remote, unnamed, dull spot,
The dimmest in the district's map, exist
The insolence of wealth in poverty
O'er something poorer still—the pride of rank
In servitude, o'er something still more servile;
And vice in misery affecting still
A tattered splendour. What a state of being!
In Tuscany, my own dear sunny land,
Our nobles were but citizens and merchants,
Like Cosmo. We had evils, but not such
As these; and our all-ripe and gushing valleys
Made poverty more cheerful, where each herb
Was in itself a meal, and every vine
Rained, as it were, the beverage which makes glad
The heart of man; and the ne'er unfelt sun
(But rarely clouded, and when clouded, leaving
His warmth behind in memory of his beams)
Makes the worn mantle, and the thin robe, less
Oppressive than an emperor's jewelled purple.
But, here! the despots of the north appear
To imitate the ice-wind of their clime,
Searching the shivering vassal through his rags,
To wring his soul—as the bleak elements
His form. And 'tis to be amongst these sovereigns
My husband pants! and such his pride of birth—
That twenty years of usage, such as no
Father born in a humble state could nerve
His soul to persecute a son withal,
Hath changed no atom of his early nature;
But I, born nobly also, from my father's
Kindness was taught a different lesson. Father!
May thy long-tried and now rewarded spirit
Look down on us and our so long desired
Ulric! I love my son, as thou didst me!
What's that? Thou, Werner! can it be? and thus?

Enter Werner hastily, with the knife in his hand, by the secret panel, which he closes hurriedly after him.
Wer.
(not at first recognising her).
(recognising her).

Jos.
What rest? My God!
What doth this mean?

Wer.
(showing a rouleau).
Here's gold—gold, Josephine,
Will rescue us from this detested dungeon.

Jos.
And how obtained?—that knife!

Wer.
'Tis bloodless—yet.
Away—we must to our chamber.

Jos.
But whence comest thou?

Wer.
Ask not! but let us think where we shall go—
This—this will make us way— (showing the gold)
—I'll fit them now.

Jos.
I dare not think thee guilty of dishonour.

Wer.
Dishonour!

Jos.
I have said it.

Wer.
Let us hence:
'Tis the last night, I trust, that we need pass here.

Jos.
And not the worst, I hope.

Wer.
Hope! I make sure.
But let us to our chamber.

Jos.
Yet one question—
What hast thou done?

Wer.
(fiercely).
Left one thing undone, which
Had made all well: let me not think of it!
Away!

Jos.
Alas that I should doubt of thee!

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

Scene I.

—A Hall in the same Palace.
Enter Idenstein and Others.
Iden.
Fine doings! goodly doings! honest doings!
A Baron pillaged in a Prince's palace!
Where, till this hour, such a sin ne'er was heard of.

Fritz.
It hardly could, unless the rats despoiled
The mice of a few shreds of tapestry.

Iden.
Oh! that I e'er should live to see this day!
The honour of our city's gone for ever.

Fritz.
Well, but now to discover the delinquent:
The Baron is determined not to lose
This sum without a search.

Iden.
And so am I.

Fritz.
But whom do you suspect?

Iden.
Suspect! all people
Without—within—above—below—Heaven help me!

Fritz.
Is there no other entrance to the chamber?

Iden.
None whatsoever.

Fritz.
Are you sure of that?

Iden.
Certain. I have lived and served here since my birth,
And if there were such, must have heard of such,
Or seen it.

Fritz.
Then it must be some one who
Had access to the antechamber.

Iden.
Doubtless.

Fritz.
The man called Werner's poor!

Iden.
Poor as a miser.
But lodged so far off, in the other wing,
By which there's no communication with
The baron's chamber, that it can't be he.
Besides, I bade him “good night” in the hall,
Almost a mile off, and which only leads
To his own apartment, about the same time
When this burglarious, larcenous felony
Appears to have been committed.

Fritz.
There's another,
The stranger—

Iden.
The Hungarian?

Fritz.
He who helped
To fish the baron from the Oder.

Iden.
Not
Unlikely. But, hold—might it not have been
One of the suite?

Fritz.
How? We, sir!

Iden.
No—not you,
But some of the inferior knaves. You say
The Baron was asleep in the great chair—
The velvet chair—in his embroidered night-gown;
His toilet spread before him, and upon it
A cabinet with letters, papers, and
Several rouleaux of gold; of which one only
Has disappeared:—the door unbolted, with
No difficult access to any.

Fritz.
Good sir,
Be not so quick; the honour of the corps
Which forms the Baron's household's unimpeached
From steward to scullion, save in the fair way
Of peculation; such as in accompts,
Weights, measures, larder, cellar, buttery,
Where all men take their prey; as also in
Postage of letters, gathering of rents,
Purveying feasts, and understanding with
The honest trades who furnish noble masters;
But for your petty, picking, downright thievery,
We scorn it as we do board wages. Then
Had one of our folks done it, he would not
Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard
His neck for one rouleau, but have swooped all;
Also the cabinet, if portable.

Iden.
There is some sense in that—

Fritz.
No, Sir, be sure
Twas none of our corps; but some petty, trivial
Fcker and stealer, without art or genius.
The only question is—Who else could have
Access, save the Hungarian and yourself?

Iden.
You don't mean me?

Fritz.
No, sir; I honour more
Your talents—

Iden.
And my principles, I hope.

Fritz.
Of course. But to the point: What's to be done?

Iden.
Nothing—but there's a good deal to be said.
We'll offer a reward; move heaven and earth,
And the police (though there's none nearer than
Frankfort); post notices in manuscript
(For we've no printer); and set by my clerk
To read them (for few can, save he and I).
We'll send out villains to strip beggars, and
Search empty pockets; also, to arrest
All gipsies, and ill-clothed and sallow people.
Prisoners we'll have at least, if not the culprit;
And for the Baron's gold—if 'tis not found,
At least he shall have the full satisfaction
Of melting twice its substance in the raising
The ghost of this rouleau. Here's alchemy
For your Lord's losses!

Fritz.
He hath found a better.

Iden.
Where?

Fritz.
In a most immense inheritance.
The late Count Siegendorf, his distant kinsman,
Is dead near Prague, in his castle, and my Lord
Is on his way to take possession.

Iden.
Was there
No heir?

Fritz.
Oh, yes; but he has disappeared
Long from the world's eye, and, perhaps, the world.
A prodigal son, beneath his father's ban
For the last twenty years; for whom his sire
Refused to kill the fatted calf; and, therefore,
If living, he must chew the husks still. But
The Baron would find means to silence him,
Were he to re-appear: he's politic,
And has much influence with a certain court.

Iden.
He's fortunate.

Fritz.
'Tis true, there is a grandson,
Whom the late Count reclaimed from his son's hands,
And educated as his heir; but, then,
His birth is doubtful.

Iden.
How so?

Fritz.
His sire made
A left-hand, love, imprudent sort of marriage,
With an Italian exile's dark-eyed daughter:
Noble, they say, too; but no match for such
A house as Siegendorf's. The grandsire ill
Could brook the alliance; and could ne'er be brought
To see the parents, though he took the son.

Iden.
If he's a lad of mettle, he may yet
Dispute your claim, and weave a web that may
Puzzle your Baron to unravel.

Fritz.
Why,
For mettle, he has quite enough: they say,
He forms a happy mixture of his sire
And grandsire's qualities,—impetuous as
The former, and deep as the latter; but
The strangest is, that he too disappeared
Some months ago.

Iden.
The devil he did!

Fritz.
Why, yes:
It must have been at his suggestion, at
An hour so critical as was the eve
Of the old man's death, whose heart was broken by it.

Iden.
Was there no cause assigned?

Fritz.
Plenty, no doubt.
And none, perhaps, the true one. Some averred
It was to seek his parents; some because
The old man held his spirit in so strictly
(But that could scarce be, for he doted on him);
A third believed he wished to serve in war,
But, peace being made soon after his departure,
He might have since returned, were that the motive;
A fourth set charitably have surmised,
As there was something strange and mystic in him,
That in the wild exuberance of his nature
He had joined the black bands, who lay waste Lusatia,
The mountains of Bohemia and Silesia,
Since the last years of war had dwindled into
A kind of general condottiero system
Of bandit-warfare; each troop with its chief,
And all against mankind.

Iden.
That cannot be.
A young heir, bred to wealth and luxury,
To risk his life and honours with disbanded
Soldiers and desperadoes!

Fritz.
Heaven best knows!
But there are human natures so allied
Unto the savage love of enterprise,
That they will seek for peril as a pleasure.
I've heard that nothing can reclaim your Indian,
Or tame the tiger, though their infancy
Were fed on milk and honey. After all,
Your Wallenstein, your Tilly and Gustavus,
Your Bannier, and your Torstenson and Weimar,
Were but the same thing upon a grand scale;
And now that they are gone, and peace proclaimed,
They who would follow the same pastime must
Pursue it on their own account. Here comes
The Baron, and the Saxon stranger, who
Was his chief aid in yesterday's escape,
But did not leave the cottage by the Oder
Until this morning.

Enter Stralenheim and Ulric.
Stral.
Since you have refused
All compensation, gentle stranger, save
Inadequate thanks, you almost check even them,
Making me feel the worthlessness of words,
And blush at my own barren gratitude,
They seem so niggardly, compared with what
Your courteous courage did in my behalf—

Ulr.
I pray you press the theme no further.

Stral.
But
Can I not serve you? You are young, and of
That mould which throws out heroes; fair in favour;
Brave, I know, by my living now to say so;
And, doubtlessly, with such a form and heart,
Would look into the fiery eyes of War,
As ardently for glory as you dared
An obscure death to save an unknown stranger,
In an as perilous, but opposite, element.
You are made for the service: I have served;
Have rank by birth and soldiership, and friends,
Who shall be yours. 'Tis true this pause of peace
Favours such views at present scantily;
But 'twill not last, men's spirits are too stirring;
And, after thirty years of conflict, peace
Is but a petty war, as the time shows us
In every forest, or a mere armed truce.
War will reclaim his own; and, in the meantime,
You might obtain a post, which would ensure
A higher soon, and, by my influence, fail not
To rise. I speak of Brandenburgh, wherein
I stand well with the Elector; in Bohemia,
Like you, I am a stranger, and we are now
Upon its frontier.

Ulr.
You perceive my garb
Is Saxon, and, of course, my service due
To my own Sovereign. If I must decline
Your offer, 'tis with the same feeling which
Induced it.

Stral.
Why, this is mere usury!
I owe my life to you, and you refuse
The acquittance of the interest of the debt,
To heap more obligations on me, till
I bow beneath them.

Ulr.
You shall say so when
I claim the payment.

Stral.
Well, sir, since you will not—
You are nobly born?

Ulr.
I have heard my kinsmen say so.

Stral.
Your actions show it. Might I ask your name?

Ulr.
Ulric.

Stral.
Your house's?

Ulr.
When I'm worthy of it,
I'll answer you.

Stral.
(aside).
Most probably an Austrian,
Whom these unsettled times forbid to boast
His lineage on these wild and dangerous frontiers,
Where the name of his country is abhorred.
[Aloud to Fritz and Idenstein.
So, sirs! how have ye sped in your researches?

Iden.
Indifferent well, your Excellency.

Stral.
Then
I am to deem the plunderer is caught?

Iden.
Humph!—not exactly.

Stral.
Or, at least, suspected?

Iden.
Oh! for that matter, very much suspected.

Stral.
Who may he be?

Iden.
Why, don't you know, my Lord?

Stral.
How should I? I was fast asleep.

Iden.
And so
Was I—and that's the cause I know no more
Than does your Excellency.

Stral.
Dolt!

Iden.
Why, if
Your Lordship, being robbed, don't recognise
The rogue; how should I, not being robbed, identify
The thief among so many? In the crowd,
May it please your Excellency, your thief looks
Exactly like the rest, or rather better:
'Tis only at the bar and in the dungeon,
That wise men know your felon by his features;
But I'll engage, that if seen there but once,
Whether he be found criminal or no,
His face shall be so.

Stral.
(to Fritz).
Prithee, Fritz, inform me
What hath been done to trace the fellow?

Fritz.
Faith!
My Lord, not much as yet, except conjecture.

Stral.
Besides the loss (which, I must own, affects me
Just now materially), I needs would find
The villain out of public motives; for
So dexterous a spoiler, who could creep
Through my attendants, and so many peopled
And lighted chambers, on my rest, and snatch
The gold before my scarce-closed eyes, would soon
Leave bare your borough, Sir Intendant!

Iden.
True;
If there were aught to carry off, my Lord.

Ulr.
What is all this?

Stral.
You joined us but this morning.
And have not heard that I was robbed last night.

Ulr.
Some rumour of it reached me as I passed
The outer chambers of the palace, but
I know no further.

Stral.
It is a strange business:
The Intendant can inform you of the facts.

Iden.
Most willingly. You see—

Stral.
(impatiently).
Defer your tale,
Till certain of the hearer's patience.

Iden.
That
Can only be approved by proofs. You see—

Stral.
(again interrupting him, and addressing Ulric).
In short, I was asleep upon my chair,
My cabinet before me, with some gold
Upon it (more than I much like to lose,
Though in part only): some ingenious person
Contrived to glide through all my own attendants,
Besides those of the place, and bore away
A hundred golden ducats, which to find
I would be fain, and there's an end. Perhaps
You (as I still am rather faint) would add
To yesterday's great obligation, this,
Though slighter, yet not slight, to aid these men
(Who seem but lukewarm) in recovering it?

Ulr.
Most willingly, and without loss of time—
(To Idenstein.)
Come hither, mynheer!

Iden.
But so much haste bodes
Right little speed, and—

Ulr.
Standing motionless
None; so let's march: we'll talk as we go on.

Iden.
But—

Ulr.
Show the spot, and then I'll answer you.

Fritz.
I will, sir, with his Excellency's leave.

Stral.
Do so, and take yon old ass with you.

Fritz.
Hence!

Ulr.
Come on, old oracle, expound thy riddle!

[Exit with Idenstein and Fritz.
Stral.
(solus).
Enter Gabor.

Gab.
As those who fare well everywhere, when they
Have supped and slumbered, no great matter how—
And you, my Lord?

Stral.
Better in rest than purse:
Mine inn is like to cost me dear.

Gab.
I heard
Of your late loss; but 'tis a trifle to
One of your order.

Stral.
You would hardly think so,
Were the loss yours.

Gab.
I never had so much
(At once) in my whole life, and therefore am not
Fit to decide. But I came here to seek you.
Your couriers are turned back—I have outstripped them,
In my return.

Stral.
You!—Why?

Gab.
I went at daybreak,
To watch for the abatement of the river,
As being anxious to resume my journey.
Your messengers were all checked like myself;
And, seeing the case hopeless, I await
The current's pleasure.

Stral.
Would the dogs were in it!
Why did they not, at least, attempt the passage?
I ordered this at all risks.

Gab.
Could you order
The Oder to divide, as Moses did
The Red Sea (scarcely redder than the flood
Of the swoln stream), and be obeyed, perhaps
They might have ventured.

Stral.
I must see to it:
The knaves! the slaves!—but they shall smart for this.

[Exit Stralenheim.
Gab.
(solus).
There goes my noble, feudal, self-willed Baron!
Epitome of what brave chivalry
The preux Chevaliers of the good old times
Have left us. Yesterday he would have given
His lands (if he hath any), and, still dearer,
His sixteen quarterings, for as much fresh air
As would have filled a bladder, while he lay
Gurgling and foaming half way through the window
Of his o'erset and water-logged conveyance;
And now he storms at half a dozen wretches
Because they love their lives too! Yet, he's right:
'Tis strange they should, when such as he may put them
To hazard at his pleasure. Oh, thou world!
Thou art indeed a melancholy jest!

[Exit Gabor.

Scene II.

—The Apartment of Werner, in the Palace.
Enter Josephine and Ulric.
Jos.
Stand back, and let me look on thee again!
My Ulric!—my belovéd!—can it be—
After twelve years?

Ulr.
My dearest mother!

Jos.
Yes!
My dream is realised—how beautiful!—
How more than all I sighed for! Heaven receive
A mother's thanks! a mother's tears of joy!
This is indeed thy work!—At such an hour, too,
He comes not only as a son, but saviour.

Ulr.
If such a joy await me, it must double
What I now feel, and lighten from my heart
A part of the long debt of duty, not
Of love (for that was ne'er withheld)—forgive me!
This long delay was not my fault.

Jos.
I know it,
But cannot think of sorrow now, and doubt
If I e'er felt it, 'tis so dazzled from
My memory by this oblivious transport!—
My son!

Enter Werner.
Wer.
What have we here,—more strangers?—

Jos.
No!
Look upon him! What do you see?

Wer.
A stripling,
For the first time—

Ulr.
(kneeling).
For twelve long years, my father!

Wer.
Oh, God!

Jos.
He faints!

Wer.
No—I am better now—
Ulric!

(Embraces him.)
Ulr.
My father, Siegendorf!

Wer.
(starting).
Hush! boy—
The walls may hear that name!

Ulr.
What then?

Wer.
Why, then—
But we will talk of that anon. Remember,
I must be known here but as Werner. Come!
Come to my arms again! Why, thou look'st all
I should have been, and was not. Josephine!
Sure 'tis no father's fondness dazzles me;
But, had I seen that form amid ten thousand
Youth of the choicest, my heart would have chosen
This for my son!

Ulr.
And yet you knew me not!

Wer.
Alas! I have had that upon my soul
Which makes me look on all men with an eye
That only knows the evil at first glance.

Ulr.
My memory served me far more fondly: I
Have not forgotten aught; and oft-times in
The proud and princely halls of—(I'll not name them,
As you say that 'tis perilous)—but i' the pomp
Of your sire's feudal mansion, I looked back
To the Bohemian mountains many a sunset,
And wept to see another day go down
O'er thee and me, with those huge hills between us.
They shall not part us more.

Wer.
I know not that.
Are you aware my father is no more?

Ulr.
Oh, Heavens! I left him in a green old age,
And looking like the oak, worn, but still steady
Amidst the elements, whilst younger trees
Fell fast around him. 'Twas scarce three months since.

Wer.
Why did you leave him?

Jos.
(embracing Ulric).
Can you ask that question?
Is he not here?

Wer.
True; he hath sought his parents,
And found them; but, oh! how, and in what state!

Ulr.
All shall be bettered. What we have to do
Is to proceed, and to assert our rights,
Or rather yours; for I waive all, unless
Your father has disposed in such a sort
Of his broad lands as to make mine the foremost,
So that I must prefer my claim for form:
But I trust better, and that all is yours.

Wer.
Have you not heard of Stralenheim?

Ulr.
I saved
His life but yesterday: he's here.

Wer.
You saved
The serpent who will sting us all!

Ulr.
You speak
Riddles: what is this Stralenheim to us?

Wer.
Every thing. One who claims our father's lands:
Our distant kinsman, and our nearest foe.

Ulr.
I never heard his name till now. The Count,
Indeed, spoke sometimes of a kinsman, who,
If his own line should fail, might be remotely
Involved in the succession; but his titles
Were never named before me—and what then?
His right must yield to ours.

Wer.
Aye, if at Prague:
But here he is all-powerful; and has spread
Snares for thy father, which, if hitherto
He hath escaped them, is by fortune, not
By favour.

Ulr.
Doth he personally know you?

Wer.
No; but he guesses shrewdly at my person,
As he betrayed last night; and I, perhaps,
But owe my temporary liberty
To his uncertainty.

Ulr.
I think you wrong him
(Excuse me for the phrase); but Stralenheim
Is not what you prejudge him, or, if so,
He owes me something both for past and present.
I saved his life, he therefore trusts in me.
He hath been plundered too, since he came hither:
Is sick, a stranger, and as such not now
Able to trace the villain who hath robbed him:
I have pledged myself to do so; and the business
Which brought me here was chiefly that: but I
Have found, in searching for another's dross,
My own whole treasure—you, my parents!

Wer.
(agitatedly).
Who
Taught you to mouth that name of “villain?”

Ulr.
What
More noble name belongs to common thieves?

Wer.
Who taught you thus to brand an unknown being
With an infernal stigma?

Ulr.
My own feelings
Taught me to name a ruffian from his deeds.

Wer.
Who taught you, long-sought and ill-found boy! that
It would be safe for my own son to insult me?

Ulr.
I named a villain. What is there in common
With such a being and my father?

Wer.
Every thing!
That ruffian is thy father!

Jos.
Oh, my son!
Believe him not—and yet!—

(her voice falters.)
Ulr.
(starts, looks earnestly at Werner and then says slowly).
And you avow it?

Wer.
Ulric, before you dare despise your father,
Learn to divine and judge his actions. Young,
Rash, new to life, and reared in Luxury's lap,
Is it for you to measure Passion's force,
Or Misery's temptation? Wait—(not long,
It cometh like the night, and quickly)—Wait!—
Wait till, like me, your hopes are blighted till
Sorrow and Shame are handmaids of your cabin—
Famine and Poverty your guests at table;
Despair your bed-fellow—then rise, but not
From sleep, and judge! Should that day e'er arrive—
Should you see then the Serpent, who hath coiled
Himself around all that is dear and noble
Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path,
With but his folds between your steps and happiness,
When he, who lives but to tear from you name,
Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with
Chance your conductor—midnight for your mantle—
The bare knife in your hand, and earth asleep,
Even to your deadliest foe; and he as 'twere
Inviting death, by looking like it, while
His death alone can save you:—Thank your God!
If then, like me, content with petty plunder,
You turn aside—I did so.

Ulr.
But—

Wer.
(abruplly).
Hear me!
I will not brook a human voice—scarce dare
Listen to my own (if that be human still)—
Hear me! you do not know this man—I do.
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You
Deem yourself safe, as young and brave; but learn
None are secure from desperation, few
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim,
Housed in a Prince's palace, couched within
A Prince's chamber, lay below my knife!
An instant—a mere motion—the least impulse—
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth.
He was within my power—my knife was raised—
Withdrawn—and I'm in his:—are you not so?
Who tells you that he knows you not? Who says
He hath not lured you here to end you? or
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon?

[He pauses.
Ulr.
Proceed—proceed!

Wer.
Me he hath ever known,
And hunted through each change of time—name—fortune—
And why not you? Are you more versed in men?
He wound snares round me; flung along my path
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurned
Even from my presence; but, in spurning now,
Fill only with fresh venom. Will you be
More patient? Ulric!—Ulric!—there are crimes
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations
Which nature cannot master or forbear.

Ulr.
(who looks first at him and then at Josephine).
My mother!

Wer.
Ah! I thought so: you have now
Only one parent. I have lost alike
Father and son, and stand alone.

Ulr.
But stay!

[Werner rushes out of the chamber.
Jos.
(to Ulric).
Follow him not, until this storm of passion
Abates. Think'st thou, that were it well for him,
I had not followed?

Ulr.
I obey you, mother,
Although reluctantly. My first act shall not
Be one of disobedience.

Jos.
Oh! he is good!
Condemn him not from his own mouth, but trust
To me, who have borne so much with him, and for him,
That this is but the surface of his soul,
And that the depth is rich in better things.

Ulr.
These then are but my father's principles?
My mother thinks not with him?

Jos.
Nor doth he
Think as he speaks. Alas! long years of grief
Have made him sometimes thus.

Ulr.
Explain to me
More clearly, then, these claims of Stralenheim,
That, when I see the subject in its bearings,
I may prepare to face him, or at least
To extricate you from your present perils.
I pledge myself to accomplish this—but would
I had arrived a few hours sooner!

Jos.
Aye!
Hadst thou but done so!

Enter Gabor and Idenstein, with Attendants.
Gab.
(to Ulric).
I have sought you, comrade.
So this is my reward!

Ulr.
What do you mean?

Gab.
'Sdeath! have I lived to these years, and for this!
(To Idenstein.)
But for your age and folly, I would—

Iden.
Help!
Hands off! Touch an Intendant!

Gab.
Do not think
I'll honour you so much as save your throat
From the Ravenstone by choking you myself.

Iden.
I thank you for the respite: but there are
Those who have greater need of it than me.

Ulr.
Unriddle this vile wrangling, or—

Gab.
At once, then,
The Baron has been robbed, and upon me
This worthy personage has deigned to fix
His kind suspicions—me! whom he ne'er saw
Will yester evening.

Iden.
Wouldst have me suspect
My own acquaintances? You have to learn
That I keep better company.

Gab.
You shall
Keep the best shortly, and the last for all men,
The worms! You hound of malice!

[Gabor seizes on him.
Ulr.
(interfering).
Nay, no violence:
He's old, unarmed—be temperate, Gabor!

Gab.
(letting go Idenstein).
True:
I am a fool to lose myself because
Fools deem me knave: it is their homage.

Ulr.
(to Idenstein).
How
Fare you?

Iden.
Help!

Ulr.
I have helped you.

Iden.
Kill him! then
I'll say so.

Gab.
I am calm—live on!

Iden.
That's more
Than you shall do, if there be judge or judgment
In Germany. The Baron shall decide!

Gab.
Does he abet you in your accusation?

Iden.
Does he not?

Gab.
Then next time let him go sink
Ere I go hang for snatching him from drowning.
But here he comes!

Enter Stralenheim.
Gab.
(goes up to him).
My noble Lord, I'm here!

Stral.
Well, sir!

Gab.
Have you aught with me?

Stral.
What should I
Have with you?

Gab.
You know best, if yesterday's
Flood has not washed away your memory;
But that 's a trifle. I stand here accused,
In phrases not equivocal, by yon
Intendant, of the pillage of your person
Or chamber:—is the charge your own or his?

Stral.
I accuse no man.

Gab.
Then you acquit me, Baron?

Stral.
I know not whom to accuse, or to acquit,
Or scarcely to suspect.

Gab.
But you at least
Should know whom not to suspect. I am insulted—
Oppressed here by these menials, and I look
To you for remedy—teach them their duty!
To look for thieves at home were part of it,
If duly taught; but, in one word, if I
Have an accuser, let it be a man
Worthy to be so of a man like me.
I am your equal.

Stral.
You!

Gab.
Aye, sir; and, for
Aught that you know, superior; but proceed—
I do not ask for hints, and surmises,
And circumstance, and proof: I know enough
Of what I have done for you, and what you owe me,
To have at least waited your payment rather
Than paid myself, had I been eager of
Your gold. I also know, that were I even
The villain I am deemed, the service rendered
So recently would not permit you to
Pursue me to the death, except through shame,
Such as would leave your scutcheon but a blank.
But this is nothing: I demand of you
Justice upon your unjust servants, and
From your own lips a disavowal of
All sanction of their insolence: thus much
You owe to the unknown, who asks no more,
And never thought to have asked so much.

Stral.
This tone
May be of innocence.

Gab.
'Sdeath! who dare doubt it,
Except such villains as ne'er had it?

Stral.
You
Are hot, sir.

Gab.
Must I turn an icicle
Before the breath of menials, and their master?

Stral.
Ulric! you know this man; I found him in
Your company.

Gab.
We found you in the Oder;
Would we had left you there!

Stral.
I give you thanks, sir.

Gab.
I've earned them; but might have earned more from others,
Perchance, if I had left you to your fate.

Stral.
Ulric! you know this man?

Gab.
No more than you do
If he avouches not my honour.

Ulr.
I
Can vouch your courage, and, as far as my
Own brief connection led me, honour.

Stral.
Then
I'm satisfied.

Gab.
(ironically).
Right easily, methinks.
What is the spell in his asseveration
More than in mine?

Stral.
I merely said that I
Was satisfied—not that you are absolved.

Gab.
Again! Am I accused or no?

Stral.
Go to!
You wax too insolent. If circumstance
And general suspicion be against you,
Is the fault mine? Is't not enough that I
Decline all question of your guilt or innocence?

Gab.
My Lord, my Lord, this is mere cozenage,
A vile equivocation; you well know
Your doubts are certainties to all around you—
Your looks a voice—your frowns a sentence; you
Are practising your power on me—because
You have it; but beware! you know not whom
You strive to tread on.

Stral.
Threat'st thou?

Gab.
Not so much
As you accuse. You hint the basest injury,
And I retort it with an open warning.

Stral.
As you have said, 'tis true I owe you something,
For which you seem disposed to pay yourself.

Gab.
Not with your gold.

Stral.
With bootless insolence.
[To his Attendants and Idenstein.
You need not further to molest this man,
But let him go his way. Ulric, good morrow!

[Exit Stralenheim, Idenstein, and Attendants.
Gab.
(following).
I'll after him and—

Ulr.
(stopping him).
Not a step.

Gab.
Who shall
Oppose me?

Ulr.
Your own reason, with a moment's
Thought.

Gab.
Must I bear this?

Ulr.
Pshaw! we all must bear
The arrogance of something higher than
Ourselves—the highest cannot temper Satan,
Nor the lowest his vicegerents upon earth.
I've seen you brave the elements, and bear
Things which had made this silkworm cast his skin—
And shrink you from a few sharp sneers and words?

Gab.
Must I bear to be deemed a thief? If 'twere
A bandit of the woods, I could have borne it—
There's something daring in it:—but to steal
The moneys of a slumbering man!—

Ulr.
It seems, then,
You are not guilty.

Gab.
Do I hear aright?
You too!

Ulr.
I merely asked a simple question.

Gab.
If the judge asked me, I would answer “No”—
To you I answer thus.

[He draws.
Ulr.
(drawing).
With all my heart!

Jos.
Without there! Ho! help! help!—Oh, God! here 's murder!

[Exit Josephine, shrieking.
Gabor and Ulric fight. Gaboris disarmed just as Stralenheim, Josephine, Idenstein, etc., re-enter.
Jos.
Oh! glorious Heaven! He 's safe!

Stral.
(to Josephine).
Who's safe!

Jos.
My—

Ulr.
(interrupting her with a stern look, and turning afterwards to Stralenheim).
Both!
Here 's no great harm done.

Stral.
What hath caused all this?

Ulr.
You, Baron, I believe; but as the effect
Is harmless, let it not disturb you.—Gabor!
There is your sword; and when you bare it next,
Let it not be against your friends.

[Ulric pronounces the last words slowly and emphatically in a low voice to Gabor.
Gab.
I thank you
Less for my life than for your counsel.

Stral.
These
Brawls must end here.

Gab.
(taking his sword).
They shall. You've wronged me, Ulric,
More with your unkind thoughts than sword: I would
The last were in my bosom rather than
The first in yours. I could have borne yon noble's
Absurd insinuations—ignorance
And dull suspicion are a part of his
Entail will last him longer than his lands—
But I may fit him yet:—you have vanquished me.
I was the fool of passion to conceive
That I could cope with you, whom I had seen
Already proved by greater perils than
Rest in this arm. We may meet by and by,
However—but in friendship.

[Exit Gabor.
Stral.
I will brook
No more! This outrage following upon his insults,
Perhaps his guilt, has cancelled all the little
I owed him heretofore for the so-vaunted
Aid which he added to your abler succour.
Ulric, you are not hurt?—

Ulr.
Not even by a scratch.

Stral.
(to Idenstein).
Intendant! take your measures to secure
Yon fellow: I revoke my former lenity.
He shall be sent to Frankfort with an escort,
The instant that the waters have abated.

Iden.
Secure him! He hath got his sword again—
And seems to know the use on't; 'tis his trade,
Belike;—I'm a civilian.

Stral.
Fool! are not
Yon score of vassals dogging at your heels
Enough to seize a dozen such? Hence! after him!

Ulr.
Baron, I do beseech you!

Stral.
I must be
Obeyed. No words!

Iden.
Well, if it must be so—
March, vassals! I'm your leader, and will bring
The rear up: a wise general never should
Expose his precious life—on which all rests.
I like that article of war.

[Exit Idenstein and Attendants.
Stral.
Come hither,
Ulric; what does that woman here? Oh! now
I recognise her, 'tis the stranger's wife
Whom they name “Werner.”

Ulr.
'Tis his name.

Stral.
Indeed!
Is not your husband visible, fair dame?—

Jos.
Who seeks him?

Stral.
No one—for the present: but
I fain would parley, Ulric, with yourself
Alone.

Ulr.
I will retire with you.

Jos.
(Aside to Ulric, as she goes out.)

Ulr.
(to Josephine).
Fear not!—

[Exit Josephine.
Stral.
Ulric, I think that I may trust you;
You saved my life—and acts like these beget
Unbounded confidence.

Ulr.
Say on.

Stral.
Mysterious
And long-engendered circumstances (not
To be now fully entered on) have made
This man obnoxious—perhaps fatal to me.

Ulr.
Who? Gabor, the Hungarian?

Stral.
No—this “Werner”—
With the false name and habit.

Ulr.
How can this be?
He is the poorest of the poor—and yellow
Sickness sits caverned in his hollow eye:
The man is helpless.

Stral.
He is—'tis no matter;—
But if he be the man I deem (and that
He is so, all around us here—and much
That is not here—confirm my apprehension)
He must be made secure ere twelve hours further.

Ulr.
And what have I to do with this?

Stral.
I have sent
To Frankfort, to the Governor, my friend,
(I have the authority to do so by
An order of the house of Brandenburgh),
For a fit escort—but this curséd flood
Bars all access, and may do for some hours.

Ulr.
It is abating.

Stral.
That is well.

Ulr.
But how
Am I concerned?

Stral.
As one who did so much
For me, you cannot be indifferent to
That which is of more import to me than
The life you rescued.—Keep your eye on him!
The man avoids me, knows that I now know him.—
Watch him!—as you would watch the wild boar when
He makes against you in the hunter's gap—
Like him he must be speared.

Ulr.
Why so?

Stral.
He stands
Between me and a brave inheritance!
Oh! could you see it! But you shall.

Ulr.
I hope so.

Stral.
It is the richest of the rich Bohemia,
Unscathed by scorching war. It lies so near
The strongest city, Prague, that fire and sword
Have skimmed it lightly: so that now, besides
Its own exuberance, it bears double value
Confronted with whole realms far and near
Made deserts.

Ulr.
You describe it faithfully.

Stral.
Aye—could you see it, you would say so—but,
As I have said, you shall.

Ulr.
I accept the omen.

Stral.
Then claim a recompense from it and me,
Such as both may make worthy your acceptance
And services to me and mine for ever.

Ulr.
And this sole, sick, and miserable wretch—
This way-worn stranger—stands between you and
This Paradise?—(As Adam did between
The devil and his)—

[Aside].
Stral.
He doth.

Ulr.
Hath he no right?

Stral.
Right! none. A disinherited prodigal,
Who for these twenty years disgraced his lineage
In all his acts—but chiefly by his marriage,
And living amidst commerce-fetching burghers,
And dabbling merchants, in a mart of Jews.

Ulr.
He has a wife, then?

Stral.
You'd be sorry to
Call such your mother. You have seen the woman
He calls his wife.

Ulr.
Is she not so?

Stral.
No more
Than he 's your father:—an Italian girl,
The daughter of a banished man, who lives
On love and poverty with this same Werner.

Ulr.
They are childless, then?

Stral.
There is or was a bastard,
Whom the old man—the grandsire (as old age
Is ever doting) took to warm his bosom,
As it went chilly downward to the grave:
But the imp stands not in my path—he has fled,
No one knows whither; and if he had not,
His claims alone were too contemptible
To stand.—Why do you smile?

Ulr.
At your vain fears:
A poor man almost in his grasp—a child
Of doubtful birth—can startle a grandee!

Stral.
All 's to be feared, where all is to be gained.

Ulr.
True; and aught done to save or to obtain it.

Stral.
You have harped the very string next to my heart.
I may depend upon you?

Ulr.
'Twere too late
To doubt it.

Stral.
Let no foolish pity shake
Your bosom (for the appearance of the man
Is pitiful)—he is a wretch, as likely
To have robbed me as the fellow more suspected,
Except that circumstance is less against him;
He being lodged far off, and in a chamber
Without approach to mine; and, to say truth,
I think too well of blood allied to mine,
To deem he would descend to such an act:
Besides, he was a soldier, and a brave one
Once—though too rash.

Ulr.
And they, my Lord, we know
By our experience, never plunder till
They knock the brains out first—which makes then heirs,
Not thieves. The dead, who feel nought, can lose nothing,
Nor e'er be robbed: their spoils are a bequest—
No more.

Stral.
Go to! you are a wag. But say
I may be sure you'll keep an eye on this man,
And let me know his slightest movement towards
Concealment or escape.

Ulr.
You may be sure
You yourself could not watch him more than I
Will be his sentinel.

Stral.
By this you make me
Yours, and for ever.

Ulr.
Such is my intention.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

Scene I.

—A Hall in the same Palace, from whence the secret Passage leads.
Enter Werner and Gabor.
Gab.
Sir, I have told my tale: if it so please you
To give me refuge for a few hours, well—
If not, I'll try my fortune elsewhere.

Wer.
How
Can I, so wretched, give to Misery
A shelter?—wanting such myself as much
As e'er the hunted deer a covert—

Gab.
Or
The wounded lion his cool cave. Methinks
You rather look like one would turn at bay,
And rip the hunter's entrails.

Wer.
Ah!

Gab.
I care not
If it be so, being much disposed to do
The same myself. But will you shelter me?
I am oppressed like you—and poor like you—
Disgraced—

Wer.
(abruptly).
Who told you that I was disgraced?

Gab.
No one; nor did I say you were so: with
Your poverty my likeness ended; but
I said I was so—and would add, with truth,
As undeservedly as you.

Wer.
Again!
As I?

Gab.
Or any other honest man.
What the devil would you have? You don't believe me
Guilty of this base theft?

Wer.
No, no—I cannot.

Gab.
Why that's my heart of honour! yon young gallant—
Your miserly Intendant and dense noble—
All—all suspected me; and why? because
I am the worst clothed, and least named amongst them;
Although, were Momus' lattice in your breasts,
My soul might brook to open it more widely
Than theirs: but thus it is—you poor and helpless—
Both still more than myself.

Wer.
How know you that?

Gab.
You're right: I ask for shelter at the hand
Which I call helpless; if you now deny it,
I were well paid. But you, who seem to have proved
The wholesome bitterness of life, know well,
By sympathy, that all the outspread gold
Of the New World the Spaniard boasts about
Could never tempt the man who knows its worth,
Weighed at its proper value in the balance,
Save in such guise (and there I grant its power,
Because I feel it,) as may leave no nightmare
Upon his heart o' nights.

Wer.
What do you mean?

Gab.
Just what I say; I thought my speech was plain:
You are no thief—nor I—and, as true men,
Should aid each other.

Wer.
It is a damned world, sir.

Gab.
So is the nearest of the two next, as
The priests say (and no doubt they should know best),
Therefore I'll stick by this—as being loth
To suffer martyrdom, at least with such
An epitaph as larceny upon my tomb.
It is but a night's lodging which I crave;
To-morrow I will try the waters, as
The dove did—trusting that they have abated.

Wer.
Abated? Is there hope of that?

Gab.
There was
At noontide.

Wer.
Then we may be safe.

Gab.
Are you
In peril?

Wer.
Poverty is ever so.

Gab.
That I know by long practice. Will you not
Promise to make mine less?

Wer.
Your poverty?

Gab.
No—you don't look a leech for that disorder;
I meant my peril only: you've a roof,
And I have none; I merely seek a covert.

Wer.
Rightly; for how should such a wretch as I
Have gold?

Gab.
Scarce honestly, to say the truth on't,
Although I almost wish you had the Baron's.

Wer.
Dare you insinuate?

Gab.
What?

Wer.
Are you aware
To whom you speak?

Gab.
No; and I am not used
Greatly to care. (A noise heard without.)
But hark! they come!

Wer.
Who come?

Gab.
The Intendant and his man-hounds after me:
I'd face them—but it were in vain to expect
Justice at hands like theirs. Where shall I go?
But show me any place. I do assure you,
If there be faith in man, I am most guiltless:
Think if it were your own case!

Wer.
(aside).
Oh, just God!
Thy hell is not hereafter! Am I dust still?

Gab.
I see you're moved; and it shows well in you:
I may live to requite it.

Wer.
Are you not
A spy of Stralenheim's?

Gab.
Not I! and if
I were, what is there to espy in you?
Although, I recollect, his frequent question
About you and your spouse might lead to some
Suspicion; but you best know—what—and why.
I am his deadliest foe.

Wer.
You?

Gab.
After such
A treatment for the service which in part
I rendered him, I am his enemy:
If you are not his friend you will assist me.

Wer.
I will.

Gab.
But how?

Wer.
(showing the panel).
There is a secret spring:
Remember, I discovered it by chance,
And used it but for safety.

Gab.
Open it,
And I will use it for the same.

Wer.
I found it,
As I have said: it leads through winding walls,
(So thick as to bear paths within their ribs,
Yet lose no jot of strength or stateliness,)
And hollow cells, and obscure niches, to
I know not whither; you must not advance:
Give me your word.

Gab.
It is unecessary:
How should I make my way in darkness through
A Gothic labyrinth of unknown windings?

Wer.
Yes, but who knows to what place it may lead?
I know not—(mark you!)—but who knows it might not
Lead even into the chamber of your foe?
So strangely were contrived these galleries
By our Teutonic fathers in old days,
When man built less against the elements
Than his next neighbour. You must not advance
Beyond the two first windings; if you do
(Albeit I never passed them,) I'll not answer
For what you may be led to.

Gab.
But I will.
A thousand thanks!

Wer.
You'll find the spring more obvious
On the other side; and, when you would return,
It yields to the least touch.

Gab.
I'll in—farewell!

[Gabor goes in by the secret panel.
Wer.
(solus).
What have I done? Alas! what had I done
Before to make this fearful? Let it be
Still some atonement that I save the man,
Those sacrifice had saved perhaps my own—
They come! to seek elsewhere what is before them!

Enter Idenstein and Others.
Iden.
Is he not here? He must have vanished then
Through the dim Gothic glass by pious aid
Of pictured saints upon the red and yellow
Casements, through which the sunset streams like sunrise
On long pearl-coloured beards and crimson crosses.
And gilded crosiers, and crossed arms, and cowls,
And helms, and twisted armour, and long swords,
All the fantastic furniture of windows
Dim with brave knights and holy hermits, whose
Likeness and fame alike rest in some panes
Of crystal, which each rattling wind proclaims
As frail as any other life or glory.
He's gone, however.

Wer.
Whom do you seek?

Iden.
A villain.

Wer.
Why need you come so far, then?

Iden.
In the search
Of him who robbed the Baron.

Wer.
Are you sure
You have divined the man?

Iden.
As sure as you
Stand there: but where 's he gone?

Wer.
Who?

Iden.
He we sought.

Wer.
You see he is not here.

Iden.
And yet we traced him
Up to this hall. Are you accomplices?
Or deal you in the black art?

Wer.
I deal plainly,
To many men the blackest.

Iden.
It may be
I have a question or two for yourself
Hereafter; but we must continue now
Our search for t'other.

Wer.
You had best begin
Your inquisition now: I may not be
So patient always.

Iden.
I should like to know,
In good sooth, if you really are the man
That Stralenheim 's in quest of.

Wer.
Insolent!
Said you not that he was not here?

Iden.
Yes, one;
But there 's another whom he tracks more keenly,
And soon, it may be, with authority
Both paramount to his and mine. But come!
Bustle, my boys! we are at fault.

[Exit Idenstein and Attendants.
Wer.
In what
A maze hath my dim destiny involved me!
And one base sin hath done me less ill than
The leaving undone one far greater. Down,
Thou busy devil, rising in my heart!
Thou art too late! I'll nought to do with blood.

Enter Ulric.
Ulr.
I sought you, father.

Wer.
Is't not dangerous?

Ulr.
No; Stralenheim is ignorant of all
Or any of the ties between us: more—
He sends me here a spy upon your actions,
Deeming me wholly his.

Wer.
I cannot think it:
'Tis but a snare he winds about us both,
To swoop the sire and son at once.

Ulr.
I cannot
Pause in each petty fear, and stumble at
The doubts that rise like briers in our path,
But must break through them, as an unarmed carle
Would, though with naked limbs, were the wolf rustling
In the same thicket where he hewed for bread.
Nets are for thrushes, eagles are not caught so:
We'll overfly or rend them.

Wer.
Show me how?

Ulr.
Can you not guess?

Wer.
I cannot.

Ulr.
That is strange.
Came the thought ne'er into your mind last night?

Wer.
I understand you not.

Ulr.
Then we shall never
More understand each other. But to change
The topic—

Wer.
You mean to pursue it, as
Tis of our safety.

Ulr.
Right; I stand corrected.
I see the subject now more clearly, and
Our general situation in its bearings.
The waters are abating; a few hours
Will bring his summoned myrmidons from Frankfort,
When you will be a prisoner, perhaps worse,
And I an outcast, bastardised by practice
Of this same Baron to make way for him.

Wer.
And now your remedy! I thought to escape
By means of this accurséd gold; but now
I dare not use it, show it, scarce look on it.
Methinks it wears upon its face my guilt
For motto, not the mintage of the state;
And, for the sovereign's head, my own begirt
With hissing snakes, which curl around my temples,
And cry to all beholders, Lo! a villain!

Ulr.
You must not use it, at least now; but take
This ring.

[He gives Werner a jewel.
Wer.
A gem! It was my father's!

Ulr.
And
As such is now your own. With this you must
Bribe the Intendant for his old caleche
And horses to pursue your route at sunrise,
Together with my mother.

Wer.
And leave you,
So lately found, in peril too?

Ulr.
Fear nothing!
The only fear were if we fled together,
For that would make our ties beyond all doubt.
The waters only lie in flood between
This burgh and Frankfort; so far 's in our favour
The route on to Bohemia, though encumbered,
Is not impassable; and when you gain
A few hours' start, the difficulties will be
The same to your pursuers. Once beyond
The frontier, and you're safe.

Wer.
My noble boy!

Ulr.
Hush! hush! no transports: we'll indulge in them
In Castle Siegendorf! Display no gold:
Show Idenstein the gem (I know the man,
And have looked through him): it will answer thus
A double purpose. Stralenheim lost gold—
No jewel: therefore it could not be his;
And then the man who was possest of this
Can hardly be suspected of abstracting
The Baron's coin, when he could thus convert
This ring to more than Stralenheim has lost
By his last night's slumber. Be not over timid
In your address, nor yet too arrogant,
And Idenstein will serve you.

Wer.
I will follow
In all things your direction.

Ulr.
I would have
Spared you the trouble; but had I appeared
To take an interest in you, and still more
By dabbling with a jewel in your favour,
All had been known at once.

Wer.
My guardian angel!
This overpays the past. But how wilt thou
Fare in our absence?

Ulr.
Stralenheim knows nothing
Of me as aught of kindred with yourself.
I will but wait a day or two with him
To lull all doubts, and then rejoin my father.

Wer.
To part no more!

Ulr.
I know not that; but at
The least we'll meet again once more.

Wer.
My boy!
My friend! my only child, and sole preserver!
Oh, do not hate me!

Ulr.
Hate my father!

Wer.
Aye,
My father hated me. Why not my son?

Ulr.
Your father knew you not as I do.

Wer.
Scorpions
Are in thy words! Thou know me? in this guise
Thou canst not know me, I am not myself;
Yet (hate me not) I will be soon.

Ulr.
I'll wait!
In the mean time be sure that all a son
Can do for parents shall be done for mine.

Wer.
I see it, and I feel it; yet I feel
Further—that you despise me.

Ulr.
Wherefore should I?

Wer.
Must I repeat my humiliation?

Ulr.
No!
I have fathomed it and you. But let us talk
Of this no more. Or, if it must be ever,
Not now. Your error has redoubled all
The present difficulties of our house
At secret war with that of Stralenheim:
All we have now to think of is to baffle
Him. I have shown one way.

Wer.
The only one,
And I embrace it, as I did my son,
Who showed himself and father's safety in
One day.

Ulr.
You shall be safe; let that suffice.
Would Stralenheim's appearance in Bohemia
Disturb your right, or mine, if once we were
Admitted to our lands?

Wer.
Assuredly,
Situate as we are now; although the first
Possessor might, as usual, prove the strongest—
Especially the next in blood.

Ulr.
Blood! 'tis
A word of many meanings; in the veins,
And out of them, it is a different thing—
And so it should be, when the same in blood
(As it is called) are aliens to each other,
Like Theban brethren: when a part is bad,
A few spilt ounces purify the rest.

Wer.
I do not apprehend you.

Ulr.
That may be—
And should, perhaps—and yet—but get ye ready;
You and my mother must away to-night.
Here comes the Intendant: sound him with the gem;
'Twill sink into his venal soul like lead
Into the deep, and bring up slime and mud,
And ooze, too, from the bottom, as the lead doth
With its greased understratum; but no less
Will serve to warn our vessels through these shoals.
The freight is rich, so heave the line in time!
Farewell! I scarce have time, but yet your hand,
My father!—

Wer.
Let me embrace thee!

Ulr.
We may be
Observed: subdue your nature to the hour!
Keep off from me as from your foe!

Wer.
Accursed
Be he who is the stifling cause which smothers
The best and sweetest feeling of our hearts;
At such an hour too!

Ulr.
Enter Idenstein.

Iden.
No, faith!

Ulr.
Well, there are plenty more:
You may have better luck another chase.
Where is the Baron?

Iden.
Gone back to his chamber:
And now I think on't, asking after you
With nobly-born impatience.

Ulr.
Your great men
Must be answered on the instant, as the bound
Of the stung steed replies unto the spur:
Tis well they have horses, too; for if they had not,
I fear that men must draw their chariots, as
They say kings did Sesostris.

Iden.
Who was he?

Ulr.
An old Bohemian—an imperial gipsy.

Iden.
A gipsy or Bohemian, 'tis the same,
For they pass by both names. And was he one?

Ulr.
I've heard so; but I must take leave. Intendant,
Your servant!—Werner (to Werner slightly),
if that be your name,

Yours.

[Exit Ulric.
Iden.
A well-spoken, pretty-faced young man!
And prettily behaved! He knows his station,
You see, sir: how he gave to each his due
Precedence!

Wer.
I perceived it, and applaud
His just discernment and your own.

Iden.
That's well—
That's very well. You also know your place, too;
And yet I don't know that I know your place.

Wer.
(showing the ring).
Would this assist your knowledge?

Iden.
How!—What!—Eh!
A jewel!

Wer.
'Tis your own on one condition.

Iden.
Mine!—Name it!

Wer.
That hereafter you permit me
At thrice its value to redeem it: 'tis
A family ring.

Iden.
A family!—yours!—a gem!
I'm breathless!

Wer.
You must also furnish me,
An hour ere daybreak, with all means to quit
This place.

Iden.
But is it real? Let me look on it:
Diamond, by all that's glorious!

Wer.
Come, I'll trust you:
You have guessed, no doubt, that I was born above
My present seeming.

Iden.
I can't say I did,
Though this looks like it: this is the true breeding
Of gentle blood!

Wer.
I have important reasons
For wishing to continue privily
My journey hence.

Iden.
So then you are the man
Whom Stralenheim 's in quest of?

Wer.
I am not;
But being taken for him might conduct
So much embarrassment to me just now,
And to the Baron's self hereafter—'tis
To spare both that I would avoid all bustle.

Iden.
Be you the man or no, 'tis not my business;
Besides, I never could obtain the half
From this proud, niggardly noble, who would raise
The country for some missing bits of coin,
And never offer a precise reward—
But this!—another look!

Wer.
Gaze on it freely;
At day-dawn it is yours.

Iden.
Oh, thou sweet sparkler!
Thou more than stone of the philosopher!
Thou touch-stone of Philosophy herself!
Thou bright eye of the Mine! thou loadstar of
The soul! the true magnetic Pole to which
All hearts point duly north, like trembling needles!
Thou flaming Spirit of the Earth! which, sitting
High on the Monarch's Diadem, attractest
More worship than the majesty who sweats
Beneath the crown which makes his head ache, like
Millions of hearts which bleed to lend it lustre!
Shalt thou be mine? I am, methinks, already
A little king, a lucky alchymist!—
A wise magician, who has bound the devil
Without the forfeit of his soul. But come,
Werner, or what else?

Wer.
Call me Werner still;
You may yet know me by a loftier title.

Iden.
I do believe in thee! thou art the spirit
Of whom I long have dreamed in a low garb.—
But come, I'll serve thee; thou shalt be as free
As air, despite the waters; let us hence:
I'll show thee I am honest—(oh, thou jewel!)
Thou shalt be furnished, Werner, with such means
Of flight, that if thou wert a snail, not birds
Should overtake thee.—Let me gaze again!
I have a foster-brother in the mart
Of Hamburgh skilled in precious stones. How many
Carats may it weigh?—Come, Werner, I will wing thee.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

—Stralenheim's Chamber.
Stralenheim and Fritz.
Fritz.
All 's ready, my good Lord!

Stral.
I am not sleepy,
And yet I must to bed: I fain would say
To rest, but something heavy on my spirit,
Too dull for wakefulness, too quick for slumber,
Sits on me as a cloud along the sky,
Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet
Descend in rain and end, but spreads itself
'Twixt earth and heaven, like envy between man
And man, an everlasting mist:—I will
Unto my pillow.

Fritz.
May you rest there well!

Stral.
I feel, and fear, I shall.

Fritz.
And wherefore fear?

Stral.
I know not why, and therefore do fear more,
Because an undescribable—but 'tis
All folly. Were the locks as I desired
Changed, to-day, of this chamber? for last night's
Adventure makes it needful.

Fritz.
Certainly,
According to your order, and beneath
The inspection of myself and the young Saxon
Who saved your life. I think they call him “Ulric.”

Stral.
You think! you supercilious slave! what right
Have you to tax your memory, which should be
Quick, proud, and happy to retain the name
Of him who saved your master, as a litany
Whose daily repetition marks your duty.—
Get hence; “You think,” indeed! you, who stood still
Howling and dripping on the bank, whilst I
Lay dying, and the stranger dashed aside
The roaring torrent, and restored me to
Thank him—and despise you. “You think!” and scarce
Can recollect his name! I will not waste
More words on you. Call me betimes.

Fritz.
Good night!
I trust to-morrow will restore your Lordship
To renovated strength and temper.

[The scene closes.

Scene III.

—The secret Passage.
Gab.
(solus).
[The scene closes.

Scene IV.

—A Garden.
Enter Werner.
Wer.
[Ulricleaps down from the terrace.

Ulr.
Stop! before
We approach, tell me—

Wer.
Why look you so?

Ulr.
Do I
Behold my father, or—

Wer.
What?

Ulr.
An assassin?

Wer.
Insane or insolent!

Ulr.
Reply, sir, as
You prize your life, or mine!

Wer.
To what must I
Answer?

Ulr.
Are you or are you not the assassin
Of Stralenheim?

Wer.
I never was as yet
The murderer of any man. What mean you?

Ulr.
Did not you this night (as the night before)
Retrace the secret passage? Did you not
Again revisit Stralenheim's chamber? and—

[Ulric pauses.
Wer.
Proceed.

Ulr.
Died he not by your hand?

Wer.
Great God!

Ulr.
You are innocent, then! my father 's innocent!
Embrace me! Yes,—your tone—your look—yes, yes,—
Yet say so.

Wer.
If I e'er, in heart or mind,
Conceived deliberately such a thought,
But rather strove to trample back to hell
Such thoughts—if e'er they glared a moment through
The irritation of my oppressed spirit—
May Heaven be shut for ever from my hopes,
As from mine eyes!

Ulr.
But Stralenheim is dead.

Wer.
'Tis horrible! 'tis hideous, as 'tis hateful!—
But what have I to do with this?

Ulr.
No bolt
Is forced; no violence can be detected,
Save on his body. Part of his own household
Have been alarmed; but as the Intendant is
Absent, I took upon myself the care
Of mustering the police. His chamber has,
Past doubt, been entered secretly. Excuse me,
If nature—

Wer.
Oh, my boy! what unknown woes
Of dark fatality, like clouds, are gathering
Above our house!

Ulr.
My father! I acquit you!
But will the world do so? will even the judge,
If—but you must away this instant.

Wer.
No!
I'll face it. Who shall dare suspect me?

Ulr.
Yet
You had no guests—no visitors—no life
Breathing around you, save my mother's?

Wer.
Ah!
The Hungarian?

Ulr.
He is gone! he disappeared
Ere sunset.

Wer.
No; I hid him in that very
Concealed and fatal gallery.

Ulr.
There I'll find him.

[Ulric is going.
Wer.
It is too late: he had left the palace ere
I quitted it. I found the secret panel
Open, and the doors which lead from that hall
Which masks it: I but thought he had snatched the silent
And favourable moment to escape
The myrmidons of Idenstein, who were
Dogging him yester-even.

Ulr.
You reclosed
The panel?

Wer.
Yes; and not without reproach
(And inner trembling for the avoided peril)
At his dull heedlessness, in leaving thus
His shelterer's asylum to the risk
Of a discovery.

Ulr.
You are sure you closed it?

Wer.
Certain.

Ulr.
That 's well; but had been better, if
You ne'er had turned it to a den for—

[He pauses.
Wer.
Thieves!
Thou wouldst say: I must bear it, and deserve it;
But not—

Ulr.
No, father; do not speak of this:
This is no hour to think of petty crimes,
But to prevent the consequence of great ones.
Why would you shelter this man?

Wer.
Could I shun it?
A man pursued by my chief foe; disgraced
For my own crime: a victim to my safety,
Imploring a few hours' concealment from
The very wretch who was the cause he needed
Such refuge. Had he been a wolf, I could not
Have in such circumstances thrust him forth.

Ulr.
And like the wolf he hath repaid you. But
It is too late to ponder thus:—you must
Set out ere dawn. I will remain here to
Trace the murderer, if 'tis possible.

Wer.
But this my sudden flight will give the Moloch
Suspicion: two new victims in the lieu
Of one, if I remain. The fled Hungarian,
Who seems the culprit, and—

Ulr.
Who seems? Who else
Can be so?

Wer.
Not I, though just now you doubted—
You, my son!—doubted—

Ulr.
And do you doubt of him
The fugitive?

Wer.
Boy! since I fell into
The abyss of crime (though not of such crime), I,
Having seen the innocent oppressed for me,
May doubt even of the guilty's guilt. Your heart
Is free, and quick with virtuous wrath to accuse
Appearances; and views a criminal
In Innocence's shadow, it may be,
Because 'tis dusky.

Ulr.
And if I do so,
What will mankind, who know you not, or knew
But to oppress? You must not stand the hazard.
Away!—I'll make all easy. Idenstein
Will for his own sake and his jewel's hold
His peace—he also is a partner in
Your flight—moreover—

Wer.
Fly! and leave my name
Linked with the Hungarian's, or, preferred as poorest,
To bear the brand of bloodshed?

Ulr.
Pshaw! leave any thing
Except our fathers' sovereignty and castles,
For which you have so long panted, and in vain!
What name? You have no name, since that you bear
Is feigned.

Wer.
Most true: but still I would not have it
Engraved in crimson in men's memories,
Though in this most obscure abode of men—
Besides, the search—

Ulr.
I will provide against
Aught that can touch you. No one knows you here
As heir of Siegendorf: if Idenstein
Suspects, 'tis but suspicion, and he is
A fool: his folly shall have such employment,
Too, that the unknown Werner shall give way
To nearer thoughts of self. The laws (if e'er
Laws reached this village) are all in abeyance
With the late general war of thirty years,
Or crushed, or rising slowly from the dust,
To which the march of armies trampled them.
Stralenheim, although noble, is unheeded
Here, save as such—without lands, influence,
Save what hath perished with him. Few prolong
A week beyond their funeral rites their sway
O'er men, unless by relatives, whose interest
Is roused: such is not here the case; he died
Alone, unknown,—a solitary grave,
Obscure as his deserts, without a scutcheon,
Is all he'll have, or wants. If I discover
The assassin, 'twill be well—if not, believe me,
None else; though all the full-fed train of menials
May howl above his ashes (as they did
Around him in his danger on the Oder),
Will no more stir a finger now than then.
Hence! hence! I must not hear your answer.—Look!
The stars are almost faded, and the grey
Begins to grizzle the black hair of night.
You shall not answer:—Pardon me that I
Am peremptory: 'tis your son that speaks,
Your long-lost, late-found son.—Let 's call my mother!
Softly and swiftly step, and leave the rest
To me: I'll answer for the event as far
As regards you, and that is the chief point,
As my first duty, which shall be observed.
We'll meet in Castle Siegendorf—once more
Our banners shall be glorious! Think of that
Alone, and leave all other thoughts to me,
Whose youth may better battle with them—Hence!
And may your age be happy!—I will kiss
My mother once more, then Heaven's speed be with you!

Wer.
This counsel 's safe—but is it honourable?

Ulr.
To save a father is a child's chief honour.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Scene I.

—A Gothic Hall in the Castle of Siegendorf, near Prague.
Enter Eric and Henrick, Retainers of the Count.
Eric.
So, better times are come at last; to these
Old walls new masters and high wassail—both
A long desideratum.

Hen.
Yes, for masters,
It might be unto those who long for novelty,
Though made by a new grave: but, as for wassail,
Methinks the old Count Siegendorf maintained
His feudal hospitality as high
As e'er another Prince of the empire.

Eric.
Why
For the mere cup and trencher, we no doubt
Fared passing well; but as for merriment
And sport, without which salt and sauces season
The cheer but scantily, our sizings were
Even of the narrowest.

Hen.
The old count loved not
The roar of revel; are you sure that this does?

Eric.
As yet he hath been courteous as he 's bounteous,
And we all love him.

Hen.
His reign is as yet
Hardly a year o'erpast its honeymoon,
And the first year of sovereigns is bridal:
Anon, we shall perceive his real sway
And moods of mind.

Eric.
Pray Heaven he keep the present!
Then his brave son, Count Ulric—there 's a knight!
Pity the wars are o'er!

Hen.
Why so?

Eric.
Look on him!
And answer that yourself.

Hen.
He 's very youthful,
And strong and beautiful as a young tiger.

Eric.
That 's not a faithful vassal's likeness.

Hen.
But
Perhaps a true one.

Eric.
Pity, as I said,
The wars are over: in the hall, who like
Count Ulric for a well-supported pride,
Which awes, but yet offends not? in the field,
Who like him with his spear in hand, when gnashing
His tusks, and ripping up, from right to left,
The howling hounds, the boar makes for the thicket?
Who backs a horse, or bears a hawk, or wears
A sword like him? Whose plume nods knightlier?

Hen.
No one's, I grant you. Do not fear, if war
Be long in coming, he is of that kind
Will make it for himself, if he hath not
Already done as much.

Eric.
What do you mean?

Hen.
You can't deny his train of followers
(But few our native fellow-vassals born
On the domain) are such a sort of knaves
As—

[Pauses.
Eric.
What?

Hen.
The war (you love so much) leaves living.
Like other parents, she spoils her worst children.

Eric.
Nonsense! they are all brave iron-visaged fellows,
Such as old Tilly loved.

Hen.
And who loved Tilly?
Ask that at Magdebourg—or, for that matter,
Wallenstein either;—they are gone to—

Eric.
Rest!
But what beyond 'tis not ours to pronounce.

Hen.
I wish they had left us something of their rest:
The country (nominally now at peace)
Is over-run with—God knows who: they fly
By night, and disappear with sunrise; but
Leave us no less desolation, nay, even more,
Than the most open warfare.

Eric.
But Count Ulric—
What has all this to do with him?

Hen.
With him!
He—might prevent it. As you say he 's fond
Of war, why makes he it not on those marauders?

Eric.
You'd better ask himself.

Hen.
I would as soon
Ask the lion why he laps not milk.

Eric.
And here he comes!

Hen.
The devil! you'll hold your tongue?

Eric.
Why do you turn so pale?

Hen.
'Tis nothing—but
Be silent.

Eric.
I will, upon what you have said.

Hen.
Enter Ulric and Rodolph.

Ulr.
Good morrow, worthy Henrick. Eric, is
All ready for the chase?

Eric.
The dogs are ordered
Down to the forest, and the vassals out
To beat the bushes, and the day looks promising.
Shall I call forth your Excellency's suite?
What courser will you please to mount?

Ulr.
The dun,
Walstein.

Eric.
I fear he scarcely has recovered
The toils of Monday: 'twas a noble chase:
You speared four with your own hand.

Ulr.
True, good Eric;
I had forgotten—let it be the grey, then,
Old Ziska: he has not been out this fortnight.

Eric.
He shall be straight caparisoned. How many
Of your immediate retainers shall
Escort you?

Ulr.
[Exit Eric.

Rod.
My Lord!

Ulr.
[Rodolph points to Henrick.

Hen.
For your commands, my Lord.

Ulr.
[Exit Henrick.

Rod.
Best wait for further and more sure advices.

Ulr.
I mean it—and indeed it could not well
Have fallen out at a time more opposite
To all my plans.

Rod.
It will be difficult
To excuse your absence to the Count your father.

Ulr.
Yes, but the unsettled state of our domain
In high Silesia will permit and cover
My journey. In the mean time, when we are
Engaged in the chase, draw off the eighty men
Whom Wolffe leads—keep the forests on your route:
You know it well?

Rod.
As well as on that night
When we—

Ulr.
We will not speak of that until
We can repeat the same with like success:
And when you have joined, give Rosenberg this letter.
[Gives a letter.
Add further, that I have sent this slight addition
To our force with you and Wolffe, as herald of
My coming, though I could but spare them ill
At this time, as my father loves to keep
Full numbers of retainers round the castle,
Until this marriage, and its feasts and fooleries,
Are rung out with its peal of nuptial nonsense.

Rod.
I thought you loved the lady Ida?

Ulr.
Why,
I do so—but it follows not from that
I would bind in my youth and glorious years,
So brief and burning, with a lady's zone,
Although 'twere that of Venus:—but I love her,
As woman should be loved—fairly and solely.

Rod.
And constantly?

Ulr.
I think so; for I love
Nought else.—But I have not the time to pause
Upon these gewgaws of the heart. Great things
We have to do ere long. Speed! speed! good Rodolph!

Rod.
On my return, however, I shall find
The Baroness Ida lost in Countess Siegendorf?

Ulr.
Perhaps: my father wishes it, and, sooth,
'Tis no bad policy: this union with
The last bud of the rival branch at once
Unites the future and destroys the past.

Rod.
Adieu.

Ulr.
Yet hold—we had better keep together
Until the chase begins; then draw thou off,
And do as I have said.

Rod.
I will. But to
Return—'twas a most kind act in the count
Your father to send up to Konigsberg
For this fair orphan of the Baron, and
To hail her as his daughter.

Ulr.
Wondrous kind!
Especially as little kindness till
Then grew between them.

Rod.
The late Baron died
Of a fever, did he not?

Ulr.
How should I know?

Rod.
I have heard it whispered there was something strange
About his death—and even the place of it
Is scarcely known.

Ulr.
Some obscure village on
The Saxon or Silesian frontier.

Rod.
He
Has left no testament—no farewell words?

Ulr.
I am neither confessor nor notary,
So cannot say.

Rod.
Ah! here 's the lady Ida.

Enter Ida Stralenheim.
Ulr.
You are early, my sweet cousin!

Ida.
Not too early,
Dear Ulric, if I do not interrupt you.
Why do you call me “Cousin?”

Ulr.
(smiling).
Are we not so?

Ida.
Yes, but I do not like the name; methinks
It sounds so cold, as if you thought upon
Our pedigree, and only weighed our blood.

Ulr.
(starting).
Blood!

Ida.
Why does yours start from your cheeks?

Ulr.
Aye! doth it?

Ida.
It doth—but no! it rushes like a torrent
Even to your brow again.

Ulr.
(recovering himself).
And if it fled,
It only was because your presence sent it
Back to my heart, which beats for you, sweet Cousin!

Ida.
“Cousin” again.

Ulr.
Nay, then, I'll call you sister.

Ida.
I like that name still worse.—Would we had ne'er
Been aught of kindred!

Ulr.
(gloomily).
Would we never had!

Ida.
Oh, heavens! and can you wish that?

Ulr.
Dearest Ida!
Did I not echo your own wish?

Ida.
Yes, Ulric,
But then I wished it not with such a glance,
And scarce knew what I said; but let me be
Sister, or cousin, what you will, so that
I still to you am something.

Ulr.
You shall be
All—all—

Ida.
And you to me are so already;
But I can wait.

Ulr.
Dear Ida!

Ida.
Call me Ida,
Your Ida, for I would be yours, none else's—
Indeed I have none else left, since my poor father—

[She pauses.
Ulr.
You have mine—you have me.

Ida.
Dear Ulric, how I wish
My father could but view my happiness,
Which wants but this!

Ulr.
Indeed!

Ida.
You would have loved him,
He you; for the brave ever love each other:
His manner was a little cold, his spirit
Proud (as is birth's prerogative); but under
This grave exterior—Would you had known each other!
Had such as you been near him on his journey,
He had not died without a friend to soothe
His last and lonely moments.

Ulr.
Who says that?

Ida.
What?

Ulr.
That he died alone.

Ida.
The general rumour,
And disappearance of his servants, who
Have ne'er returned: that fever was most deadly
Which swept them all away.

Ulr.
If they were near him,
He could not die neglected or alone.

Ida.
Alas! what is a menial to a death-bed,
When the dim eye rolls vainly round for what
It loves?—They say he died of a fever.

Ulr.
Say!
It was so.

Ida.
I sometimes dream otherwise.

Ulr.
All dreams are false.

Ida.
And yet I see him as
I see you.

Ulr.
Where?

Ida.
In sleep—I see him lie
Pale, bleeding, and a man with a raised knife
Beside him.

Ulr.
But you do not see his face?

Ida
(looking at him).
No! Oh, my God! do you?

Ulr.
Why do you ask?

Ida.
Because you look as if you saw a murderer!

Ulr.
(agitatedly).
Ida, this is mere childishness; your weakness
Infects me, to my shame: but as all feelings
Of yours are common to me, it affects me.
Prithee, sweet child, change—

Ida.
Child, indeed! I have
Full fifteen summers!

[A bugle sounds.
Rod.
Hark, my Lord, the bugle!

Ida
(peevishly to Rodolph).
Why need you tell him that? Can he not hear it
Without your echo?

Rod.
Pardon me, fair Baroness!

Ida.
I will not pardon you, unless you earn it
By aiding me in my dissuasion of
Count Ulric from the chase to-day.

Rod.
You will not,
Lady, need aid of mine.

Ulr.
I must not now
Forgo it.

Ida.
But you shall!

Ulr.
Shall!

Ida.
Yes, or be
No true knight.—Come, dear Ulric! yield to me
In this, for this one day: the day looks heavy,
And you are turned so pale and ill.

Ulr.
You jest.

Ida.
Indeed I do not:—ask of Rodolph.

Rod.
Truly,
My Lord, within this quarter of an hour
You have changed more than e'er I saw you change
In years.

Ulr.
'Tis nothing; but if 'twere, the air
Would soon restore me. I'm the true cameleon,
And live but on the atmosphere; your feasts
In castle halls, and social banquets, nurse not
My spirit—I'm a forester and breather
Of the steep mountain-tops, where I love all
The eagle loves.

Ida.
Except his prey, I hope.

Ulr.
Sweet Ida, wish me a fair chase, and I
Will bring you six boars' heads for trophies home.

Ida.
And will you not stay, then? You shall not go!
Come! I will sing to you.

Ulr.
Ida, you scarcely
Will make a soldier's wife.

Ida.
I do not wish
To be so; for I trust these wars are over,
And you will live in peace on your domains.

Enter Werner as Count Siegendorf.
Ulr.
My father, I salute you, and it grieves me
With such brief greeting.—You have heard our bugle;
The vassals wait.

Sieg.
So let them.—You forget
To-morrow is the appointed festival
In Prague for peace restored. You are apt to follow
The chase with such an ardour as will scarce
Permit you to return to-day, or if
Returned, too much fatigued to join to-morrow
The nobles in our marshalled ranks.

Ulr.
You, Count,
Will well supply the place of both—I am not
A lover of these pageantries.

Sieg.
No, Ulric;
It were not well that you alone of all
Our young nobility—

Ida.
And far the noblest
In aspect and demeanour.

Sieg.
(to Ida).
True, dear child,
Though somewhat frankly said for a fair damsel.—
But, Ulric, recollect too our position,
So lately reinstated in our honours.
Believe me, 'twould be marked in any house,
But most in ours, that one should be found wanting
At such a time and place. Besides, the Heaven
Which gave us back our own, in the same moment
It spread its peace o'er all, hath double claims
On us for thanksgiving: first, for our country;
And next, that we are here to share its blessings.

Ulr.
(aside).
Devout, too! Well, sir, I obey at once.
(Then aloud to a servant.)
Ludwig, dismiss the train without!

[Exit Ludwig.
Ida.
And so
You yield, at once, to him what I for hours
Might supplicate in vain.

Sieg.
(smiling).
You are not jealous
Of me, I trust, my pretty rebel! who
Would sanction disobedience against all
Except thyself? But fear not; thou shalt rule him
Hereafter with a fonder sway and firmer.

Ida.
But I should like to govern now.

Sieg.
You shall,
Your harp, which by the way awaits you with
The Countess in her chamber. She complains
That you are a sad truant to your music:
She attends you.

Ida.
Then good morrow, my kind kinsmen!
Ulric, you'll come and hear me?

Ulr.
By and by.

Ida.
Be sure I'll sound it better than your bugles;
Then pray you be as punctual to its notes:
I'll play you King Gustavus' march.

Ulr.
And why not
Old Tilly's?

Ida.
Not that monster's! I should think
My harp-strings rang with groans, and not with music,
Could aught of his sound on it:—but come quickly;
Your mother will be eager to receive you.

[Exit Ida.
Sieg.
Ulric, I wish to speak with you alone.

Ulr.
(Aside to Rodolph.)

Rod.
Count Siegendorf, command you aught? I am bound
Upon a journey past the frontier.

Sieg.
(starts).
Ah!—
Where? on what frontier?

Rod.
The Silesian, on
My way— (Aside to Ulric.)
—Where shall I say?

Ulr.
(aside to Rodolph).
(Aside to himself).

Rod.
Count, to Hamburgh.

Sieg.
(agitated).
Hamburgh! No, I have nought to do there, nor
Am aught connected with that city. Then
God speed you!

Rod.
Fare ye well, Count Siegendorf!

[Exit Rodolph.
Sieg.
Ulric, this man, who has just departed, is
One of those strange companions whom I fain
Would reason with you on.

Ulr.
My Lord, he is
Noble by birth, of one of the first houses
In Saxony.

Sieg.
I talk not of his birth,
But of his bearing. Men speak lightly of him.

Ulr.
So they will do of most men. Even the monarch
Is not fenced from his chamberlain's slander, or
The sneer of the last courtier whom he has made
Great and ungrateful.

Sieg.
If I must be plain,
The world speaks more than lightly of this Rodolph:
They say he is leagued with the “black bands” who still
Ravage the frontier.

Ulr.
And will you believe
The world?

Sieg.
In this case—yes.

Ulr.
In any case,
I thought you knew it better than to take
An accusation for a sentence.

Sieg.
Son!
I understand you: you refer to—but
My destiny has so involved about me
Her spider web, that I can only flutter
Like the poor fly, but break it not. Take heed,
Ulric; you have seen to what the passions led me:
Twenty long years of misery and famine
Quenched them not—twenty thousand more, perchance,
Hereafter (or even here in moments which
Might date for years, did Anguish make the dial),
May not obliterate or expiate
The madness and dishonour of an instant.
Ulric, be warned by a father!—I was not
By mine, and you behold me!

Ulr.
I behold
The prosperous and belovéd Siegendorf,
Lord of a Prince's appanage, and honoured
By those he rules and those he ranks with.

Sieg.
Ah!
Why wilt thou call me prosperous, while I fear
For thee? Belovéd, when thou lovest me not!
All hearts but one may beat in kindness for me—
But if my son's is cold!—

Ulr.
Who dare say that?

Sieg.
None else but I, who see it—feel it—keener
Than would your adversary, who dared say so,
Your sabre in his heart! But mine survives
The wound.

Ulr.
You err. My nature is not given
To outward fondling: how should it be so,
After twelve years' divorcement from my parents?

Sieg.
And did not I too pass those twelve torn years
In a like absence? But 'tis vain to urge you—
Nature was never called back by remonstrance.
Let's change the theme. I wish you to consider
That these young violent nobles of high name,
But dark deeds (aye, the darkest, if all Rumour
Reports be true), with whom thou consortest,
Will lead thee—

Ulr.
(impatiently).
I'll be led by no man.

Sieg.
Nor
Be leader of such, I would hope: at once
To wean thee from the perils of thy youth
And haughty spirit, I have thought it well
That thou shouldst wed the lady Ida—more
As thou appear'st to love her.

Ulr.
I have said
I will obey your orders, were they to
Unite with Hecate—can a son say more?

Sieg.
He says too much in saying this. It is not
The nature of thine age, nor of thy blood,
Nor of thy temperament, to talk so coolly,
Or act so carelessly, in that which is
The bloom or blight of all men's happiness,
(For Glory's pillow is but restless, if
Love lay not down his cheek there): some strong bias,
Some master fiend is in thy service, to
Misrule the mortal who believes him slave,
And makes his every thought subservient; else
Thou'dst say at once—“I love young Ida, and
Will wed her;” or, “I love her not, and all
The powers on earth shall never make me.”—So
Would I have answered.

Ulr.
Sir, you wed for love.

Sieg.
I did, and it has been my only refuge
In many miseries.

Ulr.
Which miseries
Had never been but for this love-match.

Sieg.
Still
Against your age and nature! Who at twenty
E'er answered thus till now?

Ulr.
Did you not warn me
Against your own example?

Sieg.
Boyish sophist!
In a word, do you love, or love not, Ida?

Ulr.
What matters it, if I am ready to
Obey you in espousing her?

Sieg.
As far
As you feel, nothing—but all life for her.
She's young—all-beautiful—adores you—is
Endowed with qualities to give happiness,
Such as rounds common life into a dream
Of something which your poets cannot paint,
And (if it were not wisdom to love virtue),
For which Philosophy might barter Wisdom;
And giving so much happiness, deserves
A little in return. I would not have her
Break her heart with a man who has none to break!
Or wither on her stalk like some pale rose
Deserted by the bird she thought a nightingale,
According to the Orient tale. She is—

Ulr.
The daughter of dead Stralenheim, your foe:
I'll wed her, ne'ertheless; though, to say truth,
Just now I am not violently transported
In favour of such unions.

Sieg.
But she loves you.

Ulr.
And I love her, and therefore would think twice.

Sieg.
Alas! Love never did so.

Ulr.
Then 'tis time
He should begin, and take the bandage from
His eyes, and look before he leaps; till now
He hath ta'en a jump i' the dark.

Sieg.
But you consent?

Ulr.
I did, and do.

Sieg.
Then fix the day.

Ulr.
'Tis usual,
And, certes, courteous, to leave that to the lady.

Sieg.
I will engage for her.

Ulr.
So will not I
For any woman: and as what I fix,
I fain would see unshaken, when she gives
Her answer, I'll give mine.

Sieg.
But 'tis your office
To woo.

Ulr.
Count, 'tis a marriage of your making,
So be it of your wooing; but to please you,
I will now pay my duty to my mother,
With whom, you know, the lady Ida is.—
What would you have? You have forbid my stirring
For manly sports beyond the castle walls,
And I obey; you bid me turn a chamberer,
To pick up gloves, and fans, and knitting-needles,
And list to songs and tunes, and watch for smiles,
And smile at pretty prattle, and look into
The eyes of feminine, as though they were
The stars receding early to our wish
Upon the dawn of a world-winning battle—
What can a son or man do more?

[Exit Ulric.
Sieg.
(solus).
Too much!—
Too much of duty, and too little love!
He pays me in the coin he owes me not:
For such hath been my wayward fate, I could not
Fulfil a parent's duties by his side
Till now; but love he owes me, for my thoughts
Ne'er left him, nor my eyes longed without tears
To see my child again,—and now I have found him!
But how! obedient, but with coldness; duteous
In my sight, but with carelessness; mysterious—
Abstracted—distant—much given to long absence,
And where—none know—in league with the most riotous
Of our young nobles; though, to do him justice,
He never stoops down to their vulgar pleasures;
Yet there's some tie between them which I can not
Unravel. They look up to him—consult him—
Throng round him as a leader: but with me
He hath no confidence! Ah! can I hope it
After—what! doth my father's curse descend
Even to my child? Or is the Hungarian near
To shed more blood? or—Oh! if it should be!
Spirit of Stralenheim, dost thou walk these walls
To wither him and his—who, though they slew not,
Unlatched the door of Death for thee? 'Twas not
Our fault, nor is our sin: thou wert our foe,
And yet I spared thee when my own destruction
Slept with thee, to awake with thine awakening!
And only took—Accurséd gold! thou liest
Like poison in my hands; I dare not use thee,
Nor part from thee; thou camest in such a guise,
Methinks thou wouldst contaminate all hands
Like mine. Yet I have done, to atone for thee,
Thou villanous gold! and thy dead master's doom,
Though he died not by me or mine, as much
As if he were my brother! I have ta'en
His orphan Ida—cherished her as one
Who will be mine.

Enter an Attendant.
Atten.
The abbot, if it please
Your Excellency, whom you sent for, waits
Upon you.

[Exit Attendant.
Enter the Prior Albert.
Prior.
Peace be with these walls, and all
Within them!

Sieg.
Welcome, welcome, holy father!
And may thy prayer be heard!—all men have need
Of such, and I—

Prior.
Have the first claim to all
The prayers of our community. Our convent,
Erected by your ancestors, is still
Protected by their children.

Sieg.
Yes, good father;
Continue daily orisons for us
In these dim days of heresies and blood,
Though the schismatic Swede, Gustavus, is
Gone home.

Prior.
To the endless home of unbelievers,
Where there is everlasting wail and woe,
Gnashing of teeth, and tears of blood, and fire
Eternal and the worm which dieth not!

Sieg.
True, father: and to avert those pangs from one,
Who, though of our most faultless holy church,
Yet died without its last and dearest offices,
Which smooth the soul through purgatorial pains,
I have to offer humbly this donation
In masses for his spirit.

[Siegendorf offers the gold which he had taken from Stralenheim.
Prior.
Count, if I
Receive it, 'tis because I know too well
Refusal would offend you. Be assured
The largess shall be only dealt in alms,
And every mass no less sung for the dead.
Our House needs no donations, thanks to yours,
Which has of old endowed it; but from you
And yours in all meet things 'tis fit we obey.
For whom shall mass be said?

Sieg.
(faltering).
For—for—the dead.

Prior.
His name?

Sieg.
'Tis from a soul, and not a name,
I would avert perdition.

Prior.
I meant not
To pry into your secret. We will pray
For one unknown, the same as for the proudest.

Sieg.
Secret! I have none: but, father, he who's gone
Might have one; or, in short, he did bequeath—
No, not bequeath—but I bestow this sum
For pious purposes.

Prior.
A proper deed
In the behalf of our departed friends.

Sieg.
But he who 's gone was not my friend, but foe,
The deadliest and the stanchest.

Prior.
Better still!
To employ our means to obtain Heaven for the souls
Of our dead enemies is worthy those
Who can forgive them living.

Sieg.
But I did not
Forgive this man. I loathed him to the last,
As he did me. I do not love him now,
But—

Prior.
Best of all! for this is pure religion!
You fain would rescue him you hate from hell—
An evangelical compassion—with
Your own gold too!

Sieg.
Father, 'tis not my gold.

Prior.
Whose, then? You said it was no legacy.

Sieg.
No matter whose—of this be sure, that he
Who owned it never more will need it, save
In that which it may purchase from your altars:
'Tis yours, or theirs.

Prior.
Is there no blood upon it?

Sieg.
No; but there 's worse than blood—eternal shame!

Prior.
Did he who owned it die in his bed?

Sieg.
Alas!
He did.

Prior.
Son! you relapse into revenge,
If you regret your enemy's bloodless death.

Sieg.
His death was fathomlessly deep in blood.

Prior.
You said he died in his bed, not battle.

Sieg.
He
Died, I scarce know—but—he was stabbed i' the dark,
And now you have it—perished on his pillow
By a cut-throat!—Aye!—you may look upon me!
I am not the man. I'll meet your eye on that point,
As I can one day God's.

Prior.
Nor did he die
By means, or men, or instrument of yours?

Sieg.
No! by the God who sees and strikes!

Prior.
Nor know you
Who slew him?

Sieg.
I could only guess at one,
And he to me a stranger, unconnected,
As unemployed. Except by one day's knowledge,
I never saw the man who was suspected.

Prior.
Then you are free from guilt.

Sieg.
(eagerly).
Oh! am I?—say!

Prior.
You have said so, and know best.

Sieg.
Father! I have spoken
The truth, and nought but truth, if not the whole;
Yet say I am not guilty! for the blood
Of this man weighs on me, as if I shed it,
Though, by the Power who abhorreth human blood,
I did not!—nay, once spared it, when I might
And could—aye, perhaps, should (if our self-safety
Be e'er excusable in such defences
Against the attacks of over-potent foes):
But pray for him, for me, and all my house;
For, as I said, though I be innocent,
I know not why, a like remorse is on me,
As if he had fallen by me or mine. Pray for me,
Father! I have prayed myself in vain.

Prior.
I will.
Be comforted! You are innocent, and should
Be calm as innocence.

Sieg.
But calmness is not
Always the attribute of innocence.
I feel it is not.

Prior.
But it will be so,
When the mind gathers up its truth within it.
Remember the great festival to-morrow,
In which you rank amidst our chiefest nobles,
As well as your brave son; and smooth your aspect,
Nor in the general orison of thanks
For bloodshed stopt, let blood you shed not rise,
A cloud, upon your thoughts. This were to be
Too sensitive. Take comfort, and forget
Such things, and leave remorse unto the guilty.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

Scene I.

—A large and magnificent Gothic Hall in the Castle of Siegendorf, decorated with Trophies, Banners, and Arms of that Family.
Enter Arnheim and Meister, attendants of Count Siegendorf.
Arn.
Be quick! the Count will soon return: the ladies
Already are at the portal. Have you sent
The messengers in search of him he seeks for?

Meis.
I have, in all directions, over Prague,
As far as the man's dress and figure could
By your description track him. The devil take
These revels and processions! All the pleasure
(If such there be) must fall to the spectators,—
I'm sure none doth to us who make the show.

Arn.
Go to! my Lady Countess comes.

Meis.
I'd rather
Ride a day's hunting on an outworn jade,
Than follow in the train of a great man,
In these dull pageantries.

Arn.
Begone! and rail
Within.

[Exeunt.
Enter the Countess Josephine Siegendorf and Ida Stralenheim.
Jos.
Well, Heaven be praised! the show is over.

Ida.
How can you say so? Never have I dreamt
Of aught so beautiful. The flowers, the boughs,
The banners, and the nobles, and the knights,
The gems, the robes, the plumes, the happy faces,
The coursers, and the incense, and the sun
Streaming through the stained windows, even the tombs,
Which looked so calm, and the celestial hymns,
Which seemed as if they rather came from Heaven
Than mounted there—the bursting organ's peal
Rolling on high like an harmonious thunder;
The white robes and the lifted eyes; the world
At peace! and all at peace with one another!
Oh, my sweet mother!

[Embracing Josephine.
Jos.
My belovéd child!
For such, I trust, thou shalt be shortly.

Ida.
Oh!
I am so already. Feel how my heart beats!

Jos.
It does, my love; and never may it throb
With aught more bitter.

Ida.
Never shall it do so!
How should it? What should make us grieve? I hate
To hear of sorrow: how can we be sad,
Who love each other so entirely? You,
The Count, and Ulric, and your daughter Ida.

Jos.
Poor child!

Ida.
Do you pity me?

Jos.
No: I but envy,
And that in sorrow, not in the world's sense
Of the universal vice, if one vice be
More general than another.

Ida.
I'll not hear
A word against a world which still contains
You and my Ulric. Did you ever see
Aught like him? How he towered amongst them all!
How all eyes followed him! The flowers fell faster—
Rained from each lattice at his feet, methought,
Than before all the rest; and where he trod
I dare be sworn that they grow still, nor e'er
Will wither.

Jos.
You will spoil him, little flatterer,
If he should hear you.

Ida.
But he never will.
I dare not say so much to him—I fear him.

Jos.
Why so? he loves you well.

Ida.
But I can never
Shape my thoughts of him into words to him:
Besides, he sometimes frightens me.

Jos.
How so?

Ida.
A cloud comes o'er his blue eyes suddenly,
Yet he says nothing.

Jos.
It is nothing: all men,
Especially in these dark troublous times,
Have much to think of.

Ida.
But I cannot think
Of aught save him.

Jos.
Yet there are other men,
In the world's eye, as goodly. There 's, for instance,
The young Count Waldorf, who scarce once withdrew
His eyes from yours to-day.

Ida.
I did not see him,
But Ulric. Did you not see at the moment
When all knelt, and I wept? and yet, methought,
Through my fast tears, though they were thick and warm,
I saw him smiling on me.

Jos.
I could not
See aught save Heaven, to which my eyes were raised,
Together with the people's.

Ida.
I thought too
Of Heaven, although I looked on Ulric.

Jos.
Come,
Let us retire! they will be here anon,
Expectant of the banquet. We will lay
Aside these nodding plumes and dragging trains.

Ida.
And, above all, these stiff and heavy jewels,
Which make my head and heart ache, as both throb
Beneath their glitter o'er my brow and zone.
Dear mother, I am with you.

Enter Count Siegendorf, in full dress, from the solemnity, and Ludwig.
Sieg.
Is he not found?

Lud.
Strict search is making every where; and if
The man be in Prague, be sure he will be found.

Sieg.
Where's Ulric?

Lud.
He rode round the other way
With some young nobles; but he left them soon;
And, if I err not, not a minute since
I heard his Excellency, with his train,
Gallop o'er the west drawbridge.

Enter Ulric, splendidly dressed.
Sieg.
(to Ludwig).
[Exit Ludwig.

Ulr.
Your wish is granted—
Behold me!

Sieg.
I have seen the murderer.

Ulr.
Whom? Where?

Sieg.
The Hungarian, who slew Stralenheim.

Ulr.
You dream.

Sieg.
I live! and as I live, I saw him—
Heard him! he dared to utter even my name.

Ulr.
What name?

Sieg.
Werner! 'twas mine.

Ulr.
It must be so
No more: forget it.

Sieg.
Never! never! all
My destinies were woven in that name:
It will not be engraved upon my tomb,
But it may lead me there.

Ulr.
To the point—the Hungarian?

Sieg.
Listen!—The church was thronged: the hymn was raised;
“Te Deum” pealed from nations rather than
From choirs, in one great cry of “God be praised”
For one day's peace, after thrice ten dread years,
Each bloodier than the former: I arose,
With all the nobles, and as I looked down
Along the lines of lifted faces,—from
Our bannered and escutcheoned gallery, I
Saw, like a flash of lightning (for I saw
A moment and no more), what struck me sightless
To all else—the Hungarian's face! I grew
Sick; and when I recovered from the mist
Which curled about my senses, and again
Looked down, I saw him not. The thanksgiving
Was over, and we marched back in procession.

Ulr.
Continue.

Sieg.
When we reached the Muldau's bridge,
The joyous crowd above, the numberless
Barks manned with revellers in their best garbs,
Which shot along the glancing tide below,
The decorated street, the long array,
The clashing music, and the thundering
Of far artillery, which seemed to bid
A long and loud farewell to its great doings,
The standards o'er me, and the tramplings round,
The roar of rushing thousands,—all—all could not
Chase this man from my mind, although my senses
No longer held him palpable.

Ulr.
You saw him
No more, then?

Sieg.
I looked, as a dying soldier
Looks at a draught of water, for this man;
But still I saw him not; but in his stead—

Ulr.
What in his stead?

Sieg.
My eye for ever fell
Upon your dancing crest; the loftiest.
As on the loftiest and the loveliest head,
It rose the highest of the stream of plumes,
Which overflowed the glittering streets of Prague.

Ulr.
What 's this to the Hungarian?

Sieg.
Much! for I
Had almost then forgot him in my son;
When just as the artillery ceased, and paused
The music, and the crowd embraced in lieu
Of shouting, I heard in a deep, low voice,
Distinct and keener far upon my ear
Than the late cannon's volume, this word—“Werner!”

Ulr.
Uttered by—

Sieg.
Him! I turned—and saw—and fell.

Ulr.
And wherefore? Were you seen?

Sieg.
The officious care
Of those around me dragged me from the spot,
Seeing my faintness, ignorant of the cause:
You, too, were too remote in the procession
(The old nobles being divided from their children)
To aid me.

Ulr.
But I'll aid you now.

Sieg.
In what?

Ulr.
In searching for this man, or—When he's found,
What shall we do with him?

Sieg.
I know not that.

Ulr.
Then wherefore seek?

Sieg.
Because I cannot rest
Till he is found. His fate, and Stralenheim's,
And ours, seem intertwisted! nor can be
Unravelled, till—

Enter an Attendant.
Atten.
A stranger to wait on
Your Excellency.

Sieg.
Who?

Atten.
He gave no name.

Sieg.
[The Attendant introduces Gabor, and afterwards exit.

Gab.
'Tis then Werner!

Sieg.
(haughtily).
The same you knew, sir, by that name; and you!

Gab.
(looking round).
I recognise you both: father and son,
It seems. Count, I have heard that you, or yours,
Have lately been in search of me: I am here.

Sieg.
I have sought you, and have found you: you are charged
(Your own heart may inform you why) with such
A crime as—

[He pauses.
Gab.
Give it utterance, and then
I'll meet the consequences.

Sieg.
You shall do so—
Unless—

Gab.
First, who accuses me?

Sieg.
All things,
If not all men: the universal rumour—
My own presence on the spot—the place—the time—
And every speck of circumstance unite
To fix the blot on you.

Gab.
And on me only?
Pause ere you answer: is no other name,
Save mine, stained in this business?

Sieg.
Trifling villain!
Who play'st with thine own guilt! Of all that breathe
Thou best dost know the innocence of him
'Gainst whom thy breath would blow thy bloody slander.
But I will talk no further with a wretch,
Further than justice asks. Answer at once,
And without quibbling, to my charge.

Gab.
'Tis false!

Sieg.
Who says so?

Gab.
I.

Sieg.
And how disprove it?

Gab.
By
The presence of the murderer.

Sieg.
Name him.

Gab.
He
May have more names than one. Your Lordship had so
Once on a time.

Sieg.
If you mean me, I dare
Your utmost.

Gab.
You may do so, and in safety;
I know the assassin.

Sieg.
Where is he?

Gab.
(pointing to Ulric).
Beside you!

[Ulric rushes forward to attack Gabor; Siegendorf interposes.
Sieg.
Liar and fiend! but you shall not be slain;
These walls are mine, and you are safe within them.
Ulric, repel this calumny, as I
[He turns to Ulric.
Will do. I avow it is a growth so monstrous,
I could not deem it earth-born: but be calm;
It will refute itself. But touch him not.

[Ulric endeavours to compose himself.
Gab.
Look at him, Count, and then hear me.

Sieg.
(first to Gabor, and then looking at Ulric).
I hear thee.
My God! you look—

Ulr.
How?

Sieg.
As on that dread night,
When we met in the garden.

Ulr.
(composing himself).
It is nothing.

Gab.
Count, you are bound to hear me. I came hither
Not seeking you, but sought. When I knelt down
Amidst the people in the church, I dreamed not
To find the beggared Werner in the seat
Of Senators and Princes; but you have called me,
And we have met.

Sieg.
Go on, sir.

Gab.
Ere I do so,
Allow me to inquire, who profited
By Stralenheim's death? Was't I—as poor as ever;
And poorer by suspicion on my name!
The Baron lost in that last outrage neither
Jewels nor gold; his life alone was sought.—
A life which stood between the claims of others
To honours and estates scarce less than princely.

Sieg.
These hints, as vague as vain, attach no less
To me than to my son.

Gab.
I can't help that.
But let the consequence alight on him
Who feels himself the guilty one amongst us.
I speak to you, Count Siegendorf, because
I know you innocent, and deem you just.
But ere I can proceed—dare you protect me?
Dare you command me?

[Siegendorf first looks at the Hungarian, and then at Ulric, who has unbuckled his sabre, and is drawing lines with it on the floor—still in its sheath.
Ulr.
(looks at his father, and says,)
Let the man go on!

Gab.
I am unarmed, Count, bid your son lay down
His sabre.

Ulr.
(offers it to him contemptuously).
Take it.

Gab.
No, sir, 'tis enough
That we are both unarmed—I would not choose
To wear a steel which may be stained with more
Blood than came there in battle.

Ulr.
(casts the sabre from him in contempt).
It—or some
Such other weapon in my hand—spared yours
Once, when disarmed and at my mercy.

Gab.
True—
I have not forgotten it: you spared me for
Your own especial purpose—to sustain
An ignominy not my own.

Ulr.
Proceed.
The tale is doubtless worthy the relater.
But is it of my father to hear further?

[To Siegendorf.
Sieg.
(takes his son by the hand).
My son, I know my own innocence, and doubt not
Of yours—but I have promised this man patience;
Let him continue.

Gab.
I will not detain you,
By speaking of myself much: I began
Life early—and am what the world has made me.
At Frankfort on the Oder, where I passed
A winter in obscurity, it was
My chance at several places of resort
(Which I frequented sometimes, but not often)
To hear related a strange circumstance
In February last. A martial force,
Sent by the state, had, after strong resistance,
Secured a band of desperate men, supposed
Marauders from the hostile camp.—They proved,
However, not to be so—but banditti,
Whom either accident or enterprise
Had carried from their usual haunt—the forests
Which skirt Bohemia—even into Lusatia.
Many amongst them were reported of
High rank—and martial law slept for a time.
At last they were escorted o'er the frontiers,
And placed beneath the civil jurisdiction
Of the free town of Frankfort. Of their fate
I know no more.

Sieg.
And what is this to Ulric?

Gab.
Amongst them there was said to be one man
Of wonderful endowments:—birth and fortune,
Youth, strength, and beauty, almost superhuman,
And courage as unrivalled, were proclaimed
His by the public rumour; and his sway,
Not only over his associates, but
His judges, was attributed to witchcraft,
Such was his influence:—I have no great faith
In any magic save that of the mine—
I therefore deemed him wealthy.—But my soul
Was roused with various feelings to seek out
This prodigy, if only to behold him.

Sieg.
And did you so?

Gab.
You'll hear. Chance favoured me:
A popular affray in the public square
Drew crowds together—it was one of those
Occasions where men's souls look out of them,
And show them as they are—even in their faces:
The moment my eye met his, I exclaimed,
“This is the man!” though he was then, as since,
With the nobles of the city. I felt sure
I had not erred, and watched him long and nearly;
I noted down his form—his gesture—features,
Stature, and bearing—and amidst them all,
'Midst every natural and acquired distinction,
I could discern, methought, the assassin's eye
And gladiator's heart.

Ulr.
(smiling).
The tale sounds well.

Gab.
And may sound better.—He appeared to me
One of those beings to whom Fortune bends,
As she doth to the daring—and on whom
The fates of others oft depend; besides,
An indescribable sensation drew me
Near to this man, as if my point of fortune
Was to be fixed by him.—There I was wrong.

Sieg.
And may not be right now.

Gab.
I followed him,
Solicited his notice—and obtained it—
Though not his friendship:—it was his intention
To leave the city privately—we left it
Together—and together we arrived
In the poor town where Werner was concealed,
And Stralenheim was succoured—Now we are on
The verge—dare you hear further?

Sieg.
I must do so—
Or I have heard too much.

Gab.
I saw in you
A man above his station—and if not
So high, as now I find you, in my then
Conceptions, 'twas that I had rarely seen
Men such as you appeared in height of mind,
In the most high of worldly rank; you were
Poor, even to all save rags: I would have shared
My purse, though slender, with you—you refused it.

Sieg.
Doth my refusal make a debt to you,
That thus you urge it?

Gab.
Still you owe me something,
Though not for that; and I owed you my safety,
At least my seeming safety, when the slaves
Of Stralenheim pursued me on the grounds
That I had robbed him.

Sieg.
I concealed you—I,
Whom and whose house you arraign, reviving viper!

Gab.
I accuse no man—save in my defence.
You, Count, have made yourself accuser—judge:
Your hall 's my court, your heart is my tribunal.
Be just, and I'll be merciful!

Sieg.
You merciful?—
You! Base calumniator!

Gab.
I. 'Twill rest
With me at last to be so. You concealed me—
In secret passages known to yourself,
You said, and to none else. At dead of night,
Weary with watching in the dark, and dubious
Of tracing back my way, I saw a glimmer,
Through distant crannies, of a twinkling light:
I followed it, and reached a door—a secret
Portal—which opened to the chamber, where,
With cautious hand and slow, having first undone
As much as made a crevice of the fastening,
I looked through and beheld a purple bed,
And on it Stralenheim!—

Sieg.
Asleep! And yet
You slew him!—Wretch!

Gab.
He was already slain,
And bleeding like a sacrifice. My own
Blood became ice.

Sieg.
But he was all alone!
You saw none else? You did not see the—

[He pauses from agitation.
Gab.
No,
He, whom you dare not name, nor even I
Scarce dare to recollect, was not then in
The chamber.

Sieg.
(to Ulric).
Then, my boy! thou art guiltless still—
Thou bad'st me say I was so once.—Oh! now
Do thou as much.

Gab.
Be patient! I can not
Recede now, though it shake the very walls
Which frown above us. You remember,—or
If not, your son does,—that the locks were changed
Beneath his chief inspection on the morn
Which led to this same night: how he had entered
He best knows—but within an antechamber,
The door of which was half ajar, I saw
A man who washed his bloody hands, and oft
With stern and anxious glance gazed back upon—
The bleeding body—but it moved no more.

Sieg.
Oh! God of fathers!

Gab.
I beheld his features
As I see yours—but yours they were not, though
Resembling them—behold them in Count Ulric's!
Distinct as I beheld them, though the expression
Is not now what it then was!—but it was so
When I first charged him with the crime—so lately.

Sieg.
This is so—

Gab.
(interrupting him).
Nay—but hear me to the end!
Now you must do so.—I conceived myself
Betrayed by you and him (for now I saw
There was some tie between you) into this
Pretended den of refuge, to become
The victim of your guilt; and my first thought
Was vengeance: but though armed with a short poniard
(Having left my sword without), I was no match
For him at any time, as had been proved
That morning—either in address or force.
I turned and fled—i' the dark: chance rather than
Skill made me gain the secret door of the hall,
And thence the chamber where you slept: if I
Had found you waking, Heaven alone can tell
What vengeance and suspicion might have prompted;
But ne'er slept guilt as Werner slept that night.

Sieg.
And yet I had horrid dreams! and such brief sleep,
The stars had not gone down when I awoke.
Why didst thou spare me? I dreamt of my father—
And now my dream is out!

Gab.
'Tis not my fault,
If I have read it.—Well! I fled and hid me—
Chance led me here after so many moons—
And showed me Werner in Count Siegendorf!
Werner, whom I had sought in huts in vain,
Inhabited the palace of a sovereign!
You sought me and have found me—now you know
My secret, and may weigh its worth.

Sieg.
(after a pause).
Indeed!

Gab.
Is it revenge or justice which inspires
Your meditation?

Sieg.
Neither—I was weighing
The value of your secret.

Gab.
You shall know it
At once:—When you were poor, and I, though poor,
Rich enough to relieve such poverty
As might have envied mine, I offered you
My purse—you would not share it:—I'll be franker
With you: you are wealthy, noble, trusted by
The imperial powers—you understand me?

Sieg.
Yes.

Gab.
Not quite. You think me venal, and scarce true:
'Tis no less true, however, that my fortunes
Have made me both at present. You shall aid me:
I would have aided you—and also have
Been somewhat damaged in my name to save
Yours and your son's. Weigh well what I have said.

Sieg.
Dare you await the event of a few minutes'
Deliberation?

Gab.
(casts his eyes on Ulric, who is leaning against a pillar).
If I should do so?

Sieg.
I pledge my life for yours. Withdraw into
This tower.

[Opens a turret-door.
Gab.
(hesitatingly).
This is the second safe asylum
You have offered me.

Sieg.
And was not the first so?

Gab.
I know not that even now—but will approve
The second. I have still a further shield.—
I did not enter Prague alone; and should I
Be put to rest with Stralenheim, there are
Some tongues without will wag in my behalf.
Be brief in your decision!

Sieg.
I will be so.—
My word is sacred and irrevocable
Within these walls, but it extends no further.

Gab.
I'll take it for so much.

Sieg.
(points to Ulric's sabre, still upon the ground).
Take also that—
I saw you eye it eagerly, and him
Distrustfully.

Gab.
(takes up the sabre).
I will; and so provide
To sell my life—not cheaply.

[Gabor goes into the turret, which Siegendorf closes.
Sieg.
(advances to Ulric).
Now, Count Ulric!
For son I dare not call thee—What say'st thou?

Ulr.
His tale is true.

Sieg.
True, monster!

Ulr.
Most true, father!
And you did well to listen to it: what
We know, we can provide against. He must
Be silenced.

Sieg.
Aye, with half of my domains;
And with the other half, could he and thou
Unsay this villany.

Ulr.
It is no time
For trifling or dissembling. I have said
His story 's true; and he too must be silenced.

Sieg.
How so?

Ulr.
As Stralenheim is. Are you so dull
As never to have hit on this before?
When we met in the garden, what except
Discovery in the act could make me know
His death? Or had the Prince's household been
Then summoned, would the cry for the police
Been left to such a stranger? Or should I
Have loitered on the way? Or could you, Werner,
The object of the Baron's hate and fears,
Have fled, unless by many an hour before
Suspicion woke? I sought and fathomed you,
Doubting if you were false or feeble: I
Perceived you were the latter: and yet so
Confiding have I found you, that I doubted
At times your weakness.

Sieg.
Parricide! no less
Than common stabber! What deed of my life,
Or thought of mine, could make you deem me fit
For your accomplice?

Ulr.
Father, do not raise
The devil you cannot lay between us. This
Is time for union and for action, not
For family disputes. While you were tortured,
Could I be calm? Think you that I have heard
This fellow's tale without some feeling?—You
Have taught me feeling for you and myself;
For whom or what else did you ever teach it?

Sieg.
Oh! my dead father's curse! 'tis working now.

Ulr.
Let it work on! the grave will keep it down!
Ashes are feeble foes: it is more easy
To baffle such, than countermine a mole,
Which winds its blind but living path beneath you.
Yet hear me still!—If you condemn me, yet,
Remember who hath taught me once too often
To listen to him! Who proclaimed to me
That there were crimes made venial by the occasion?
That passion was our nature? that the goods
Of Heaven waited on the goods of fortune?
Who showed me his humanity secured
By his nerves only? Who deprived me of
All power to vindicate myself and race
In open day? By his disgrace which stamped
(It might be) bastardy on me, and on
Himself—a felon's brand! The man who is
At once both warm and weak invites to deeds
He longs to do, but dare not. Is it strange
That I should act what you could think? We have done
With right and wrong; and now must only ponder
Upon effects, not causes. Stralenheim,
Whose life I saved from impulse, as unknown,
I would have saved a peasant's or a dog's, I slew
Known as our foe—but not from vengeance. He
Was a rock in our way which I cut through,
As doth the bolt, because it stood between us
And our true destination—but not idly.
As stranger I preserved him, and he owed me
His life: when due, I but resumed the debt.
He, you, and I stood o'er a gulf wherein
I have plunged our enemy. You kindled first
The torch—you showed the path; now trace me that
Of safety—or let me!

Sieg.
I have done with life!

Ulr.
Let us have done with that which cankers life—
Familiar feuds and vain recriminations
Of things which cannot be undone. We have
No more to learn or hide: I know no fear,
And have within these very walls men who
(Although you know them not) dare venture all things.
You stand high with the state; what passes here
Will not excite her too great curiosity:
Keep your own secret, keep a steady eye,
Sir not, and speak not;—leave the rest to me:
We must have no third babblers thrust between us.

[Exit Ulric.
Sieg.
(solus).
Am I awake? are these my father's halls?
And you—my son? My son! mine! who have ever
Abhorred both mystery and blood, and yet
Am plunged into the deepest hell of both!
I must be speedy, or more will be shed—
The Hungarian's!—Ulric—he hath partisans,
It seems: I might have guessed as much. Oh fool!
Wolves prowl in company. He hath the key
(As I too) of the opposite door which leads
Into the turret. Now then! or once more
To be the father of fresh crimes, no less
Than of the criminal! Ho! Gabor! Gabor!

[Exit into the turret, closing the door after him.

Scene II.

—The Interior of the Turret.
Gabor and Siegendorf.
Gab.
Who calls?

Sieg.
I—Siegendorf! Take these and fly!
Lose not a moment!

[Tears off a diamond star and other jewels, and thrusts them into Gabor's hand.
Gab.
What am I to do
With these?

Sieg.
Whate'er you will: sell them, or hoard,
And prosper; but delay not, or you are lost!

Gab.
You pledged your honour for my safety!

Sieg.
And
Must thus redeem it. Fly! I am not master,
It seems, of my own castle—of my own
Retainers—nay, even of these very walls,
Or I would bid them fall and crush me! Fly!
Or you will be slain by—

Gab.
Is it even so?
Farewell, then! Recollect, however, Count,
You sought this fatal interview!

Sieg.
I did:
Let it not be more fatal still!—Begone!

Gab.
By the same path I entered?

Sieg.
Yes; that 's safe still;
But loiter not in Prague;—you do not know
With whom you have to deal.

Gab.
I know too well—
And knew it ere yourself, unhappy Sire!
Farewell!

[Exit Gabor.
Sieg.
(solus and listening).
He hath cleared the staircase. Ah! I hear
The door sound loud behind him! He is safe!
Safe!—Oh, my father's spirit!—I am faint—

[He leans down upon a stone seat, near the wall of the tower, in a drooping posture.
Enter Ulric with others armed, and with weapons drams.
Ulr.
Despatch!—he's there!

Lud.
The Count, my Lord!

Ulr.
(recognizing Siegendorf).
You here, sir!

Sieg.
Yes: if you want another victim, strike!

Ulr.
(seeing him stript of his jewels).
[Exeunt all but Siegendorf and Ulric.

Sieg.
There are two, sir: which
Are you in quest of?

Ulr.
Let us hear no more
Of this: he must be found. You have not let him
Escape?

Sieg.
He's gone.

Ulr.
With your connivance?

Sieg.
With
My fullest, freest aid.

Ulr.
Then fare you well!

[Ulric is going.
Sieg.
Stop! I command—entreat—implore! Oh, Ulric!
Will you then leave me?

Ulr.
What! remain to be
Denounced—dragged, it may be, in chains; and all
By your inherent weakness, half-humanity,
Selfish remorse, and temporizing pity,
That sacrifices your whole race to save
A wretch to profit by our ruin! No, Count,
Henceforth you have no son!

Sieg.
I never had one;
And would you ne'er had borne the useless name!
Where will you go? I would not send you forth
Without protection.

Ulr.
Leave that unto me.
I am not alone; nor merely the vain heir
Of your domains; a thousand, aye, ten thousand
Swords, hearts, and hands are mine.

Sieg.
The foresters!
With whom the Hungarian found you first at Frankfort!

Ulr.
Yes—men—who are worthy of the name! Go tell
Your Senators that they look well to Prague;
Their Feast of Peace was early for the times;
There are more spirits abroad than have been laid
With Wallenstein!

Enter Josephine and Ida.
Jos.
What is't we hear? My Siegendorf!
Thank Heaven, I see you safe!

Sieg.
Safe!

Ida.
Yes, dear father!

Sieg.
No, no; I have no children: never more
Call me by that worst name of parent.

Jos.
What
Means my good Lord?

Sieg.
That you have given birth
To a demon!

Ida
(taking Ulric's hand).
Who shall dare say this of Ulric?

Sieg.
Ida, beware! there's blood upon that hand.

Ida
(stooping to kiss it).
I'd kiss it off, though it were mine.

Sieg.
It is so!

Ulr.
Away! it is your father's!

[Exit Ulric.
Ida.
Oh, great God!
And I have loved this man!

[Ida falls senseless—Josephine stands speechless with horror.
Sieg.
The wretch hath slain
Them both!—My Josephine! we are now alone!
Would we had ever been so!—All is over
For me!—Now open wide, my sire, thy grave;
Thy curse hath dug it deeper for thy son
In mine!—The race of Siegendorf is past.

WERNER.

Nov. 1815.

[First Draft.]

ACT I.

Scene I.

—A ruinous chateau on the Silesian frontier of Bohemia.
Josepha.
The storm is at it's height—how the wind howls,
Like an unearthly voice, through these lone chambers!
And the rain patters on the flapping casement
Which quivers in it's frame—the night is starless—
Yet cheerly Werner! still our hearts are warm:
The tempest is without, or should be so—
For we are sheltered here where Fortune's clouds
May roll all harmless o'er us as the wrath
Of these wild elements that menace now,
Yet do not reach us.

Werner
(without attending, and walking disturbedly, speaking to himself).
No—'Tis past—'tis blighted,
The last faint hope to which my withered fortune
Clung with a feeble and a fluttering grasp,
Yet clung convulsively—for twas the last—
Is broken with the rest: would that my heart were!
But there is pride, and passion's war within,
Which give my breast vitality to suffer,
As it hath suffered through long years till now.
My father's wrath extends beyond the grave,
And haunts me in the shape of Stralenheim!
He revels in my fathers palace—I—
Exiled—disherited—a nameless outcast!
[Werner pauses.
My boy, too, where and what is he?—my father
Might well have limited his curse to me.
If that my heritage had passed to Ulric,
I had not mourned my own less happy lot.
No—No—all 's past—all torn away.

Josepha.
Dear Werner,
Oh banish these discomfortable thoughts
That thus contend within you: we are poor,
So we have ever been—but I remember
The time when thy Josepha's smile could turn
Thy heart to hers—despite of every ill.
So let it now—alas! you hear me not.

Werner.
What said you?—let it pass—no matter what—
Think me not churlish, Sweet, I am not well.
My brain is hot and busy—long fatigue
And last night's watching have oppressed me much.

Josepha.
Then get thee to thy couch. I do perceive
In thy pale cheek and in thy bloodshot eye
A strange distemperature—nay, as a boon,
I do entreat thee to thy rest.

Werner.
My rest!
Well—be it so—Good Night!

Josepha.
Thy hand is burning;
I will prepare a potion:—peace be with thee—
Tomorrow's dawn I trust will find thee healthful;
And, then, our Ulric may perchance—

Werner.
Our Ulric—thine and mine—our only boy—
Curse on his father and his father's Sire!
(For, if it is so, I will render back
A curse that Heaven will hear as well as his),
Our Ulric by his father's fault or folly,
And by my father's unrelenting pride,
Is at this hour, perchance, undone. This night
That shelters us may shower it's wrath on him—
A homeless beggar for his parent's sin—
Thy sin and mine—Thy child and mine atones—
Our Ulric—Woman!—I'll to no bed to-night—
There is no pillow for my thoughts.

Josepha.
What words,
What fearful words are these! what may they mean?

Werner.
Look on me—thou hast known me, hitherto,
As an oppressed, but yet a humble creature;
By birth predestined to the yoke I've borne.
Till now I've borne it patiently, at least,
In bitter silence—but the hour is come,
That should and shall behold me as I was,
And ought again to be—

Josepha.
I know not what
Thy mystery may tend to, but my fate—
My heart—my will—my love are linked with thine,
And I would share thy sorrow: lay it open.

Werner.
Thou see'st the son of Count—but let it pass—
I forfeited the name in wedding thee:
That fault of many faults a father's pride
Proclaimed the last and worst—and, from that hour,
He disavowed, disherited, debased
A wayward son — — tis a long tale—too long—
And I am heartsick of the heavy thought.

Josepha.
Oh, I could weep—but that were little solace:
Yet tell the rest—or, if thou wilt not, say—
Yet say—why, through long years, from me withheld,
This fearful secret that hath gnawed thy soul?

Werner.
Why? had it not been base to call on thee
For patience and for pity—to awake
The thirst of grandeur in thy gentle spirit—
To tell thee what thou shouldst have been—the wife
Of one, in power—birth—wealth, preeminent—
Then, sudden quailing in that lofty tone,
To bid thee soothe thy husband—peasant Werner?

Josepha.
I would thou wert, indeed, the peasant Werner;
For then thy soul had been of calmer mould,
And suited to thy lot—

Werner.
Was it not so?
Beneath a humble name and garb—the which
My youthful riot and a father's frown,
Too justly fixed upon me, had compelled
My bowed down spirit to assume too well—
Since it deceived the world, myself, and thee:
I linked my lot irrevocably with thine—
And I have loved thee deeply—long and dearly—
Even as I love thee still—but these late crosses,
And most of all the last,—have maddened me;
And I am wild and wayward as in youth,
Ere I beheld thee—

Josepha.
Would thou never hadst!
Since I have been a blight upon thy hope,
And marred alike the present and the future.

Werner.
Yet say not so—for all that I have known
Of true and calm content—of love—of peace—
Has been with thee and from thee: wert thou not,
I were a lonely and self-loathing thing.
Ulric has left us! all, save thou, have left me!
Father and son—Fortune—Fame—Power—Ambition—
The ties of being—the high soul of man—
All save the long remorse—the consciousness,
The curse of living on, regretting life
Mispent in miserably gazing upward,
While others soared—Away, I'll think no more.

Josepha.
But Ulric—wherefore didst thou let him leave
His home and us? tis now three weary years.

Werner
(interrupting her quickly).
Since my hard father, half-relenting, sent
The offer of a scanty stipend which
I needs must earn by rendering up my son—
Fool that I was—I thought this quick compliance,
And never more assuming in myself
The haught name of my house would soften him—
And for our child secure the heritage
Forfeit in me forever. Since that hour,
Till the last year, the wretched pittance came—
Then ceased with every tidings of my son
And Sire—till late I heard the last had ceased
To live—and unforgiving died—Oh God!

Josepha.
Was it for this our Ulric left us so?
Thou dids't deceive me then—he went not forth
To join the legions of Count Tilly's war?

Werner.
I know not—he had left my father's castle,
Some months before his death—but why?—but why?
Left it as I did ere his birth, perchance,
Like me an outcast. Old age had not made
My father meeker—and my son, Alas!
Too much his Sire resembled—

Josepha.
Yet there's comfort.
Restrain thy wandering Spirit—Ulric cannot
Have left his native land—thou dost not know,
Though it looks strangely, thy Sire and he
In anger parted—Hope is left us still.

Werner.
The best hope that I ever held in youth,
When every pulse was life, each thought a joy,
(Yet not irrationally sanguine, since
My birth bespoke high thoughts,) hath lured and left me.
I will not be a dreamer in mine age—
The hunter of a shadow—let boys hope:
Of Hope I now know nothing but the name—
And that 's a sound which jars upon my heart.
I've wearied thee—Good night—my patient Love!

Josepha.
I must not leave thee thus—my husband—friend—
My heart is rent in twain for thee—I scarce
Dare greet thee as I would, lest that my love
Should seem officious and ill timed:—'tis early—
Yet rest were as a healing balm to thee—
Then once again—Good night!

Voice Without.
What Ho—lights ho!

Scene II.

Josepha.
What noise is that? 'tis nearer—hush! they knock.

[A knocking heard at the gate—Werner starts.
Werner
(aside).
It may be that the bloodhounds of the villain,
Who long has tracked me, have approached at last:
I'll not be taken tamely.

Josepha.
'Twas the voice,
The single voice of some lone traveller.
I'll to the door.

Werner.
No—stay thou here—again!
[Knocking repeated. Opens the door.
Well—Sir—your pleasure?

Enter Carl the Bavarian.
Carl.
Thanks most worthy Sir!
My pleasure, for to-night, depends on yours—
I'm weary, wet, and wayworn—without shelter,
Unless you please to grant it.

Josepha.
You shall have it,
Such as this ruinous mansion may afford:
Tis spacious, but too cold and crazy now
For Hospitality's more cordial welcome:
But as it is 'tis yours.

Werner
(to his wife).
Why say ye so?
At once such hearty greeting to a stranger?
At such a lonely hour, too—

Josepha
(in reply to Werner).
Nay—he's honest.
There is trust-worthiness in his blunt looks.

Werner
(to Josepha).
“Trustworthiness in looks!” I'll trust no looks!
I look into men's faces for their age,
Not for their actions—had he Adam's brow,
Open and goodly as before the fall,
I've lived too long to trust the frankest aspect.
(To Carl.)
Whence come you Sir?

Carl.
From Frankfort, on my way
To my own country—I've a companion too—
He tarries now behind:—an hour ago,
On reaching that same river on your frontier,
We found it swoln by storms—a stranger's carriage,
Despite the current, drawn by sturdy mules,
Essayed to pass, and nearly reached the middle
Of that which was the ford in gentler weather,
When down came driver, carriage, mules, and all—
You may suppose the worthy Lord within
Fared ill enough:—worse still he might have suffered,
But that my comrade and myself rushed in,
And with main strength and some good luck beside,
Dislodged and saved him: he'll be here anon.
His equipage by this time is at Dresden—
I left it floating that way.

Werner.
Where is he?

Carl.
Hitherward on his way, even like myself—
We saw the light and made for the nearest shelter:
You'll not deny us for a single night?
You've room enough, methinks—and this vast ruin
Will not be worse for three more guests.

Werner.
Two more:
And thou?—well—be it so— (aside)
(tonight will soon
Be overpast: they shall not stay tomorrow)—
Know you the name of him you saved?

Carl.
Not I!
I think I heard him called a Baron Something—
But was too chill to stay and hear his titles:
You know they are sometimes tedious in the reckoning,
If counted over by the noble wearer.
Has't any wine? I'm wet, stung to the marrow—
My comrade waited to escort the Baron:
They will be here, anon—they, too, want cheering:
I'll taste for them, if it please you, courteous host!

Josepha.
Such as our vintage is shall give you welcome:
I'll bring you some anon.

[goes out.
Carl
(looking round).
A goodly mansion!
And has been nobly tenanted, I doubt not.
This worn magnificence some day has shone
On light hearts and long revels—those torn banners
Have waved o'er courtly guests—and yon huge lamp
High blazed through many a midnight—I could wish
My lot had led me here in those gay times!
Your days, my host, must pass but heavily.
Are you the vassal of these antient chiefs,
Whose heir wastes elsewhere their fast melting hoards,
And placed to keep their cobwebs company?

Werner
(who has been absorbed in thought till the latter part of his speech).
A Vassal!—I a vassal!—who accosts me
With such familiar question?— (checks himself and says aside)
—Down startled pride!
Have not long years of wretchedness yet quenched thee,
And, suffering evil, wilt thou start at scorn?
(To Carl.)
Sir! if I boast no birth—and, as you see,
My state bespeaks none—still, no being breathes
Who calls me slave or servant.—Like yourself
I am a stranger here—a lonely guest—
But, for a time, on sufferance. On my way,
From—a far distant city—Sickness seized,
And long detained me in the neighbouring hamlet.
The Intendant of the owner of this castle,
Then uninhabited, with kind intent,
Permitted me to wait returning health
Within these walls—more sheltered than the cot
Of humble peasants.

Carl.
Worthy Sir, your mercy!
I meant not to offend you—plain of speech,
And blunt in apprehension, I do judge
Men's station from their seeming—but themselves
From acts alone. You bid me share your shelter,
And I am bound to you; and had you been
The lowliest vassal had not thanked you less,
Than I do now, believing you his better,
Perhaps my own superior—

Werner.
What imports it?
What—who I am—or whence—you are welcome—sit—
You shall have cheer anon.

(walks disturbedly aside)
Carl
(to himself).
Here's a strange fellow!
Wild, churlish, angry—why, I know not, seek not.
Would that the wine were come! my doublet 's wet,
But my throat dry as Summer's drought in desarts.
Ah—here it sparkles!

Enter Josepha with wine in flask—and a cup. As she pours it out a Voice is heard without calling at a distance. Werner starts—Josepha listens tremulously.
Werner.
That voice—that voice—Hark!
No—no—tis silent—Sir—I say—that voice—
Whose is it—speak—

Carl
(drinking unconcernedly).
Whose is it? faith, I know not—
And, yet, 'tis my companion's: he 's like you,
And does not care to tell his name and station.

[The voice again and nearer.
Josepha.
'Tis his—I knew it—Ulric!—Ulric!—Ulric!

[She drops the wine and rushes out.
Carl.
The flask's unhurt—but every drop is spilt.
Confound the voice! I say—would he were dumb!
And faith! to me, he has been nearly so—
A silent and unsocial travelling mate.

Werner
(stands in agitation gazing towards the door).
If it be he—I cannot move to meet him.
Yes—it must be so—there is no such voice
That so could sound and shake me: he is here,
And I am—

Enter Stralenheim.
Werner
(turns and sees him).
A curse upon thee, stranger!
Where dids't thou learn a tone so like my boy's?
Thou mock bird of my hopes—a curse upon thee!
Out! Out! I say. Thou shalt not harbour here.

Stralenheim.
What means the peasant? knows he unto whom
He dares address this language?

Carl.
Noble Sir!
Pray heed him not—he's Phrenzy's next door neighbour,
And full of these strange starts and causeless jarrings.

Werner.
Oh, that long wished for voice!—I dreamed of it—
And then it did elude me—then—and now. Enter Ulric and Josepha. Werner falls on his neck.

Oh God! forgive, for thou dids't not forget me.
Although I murmured—tis—it is my Son!

Josepha.
Aye, 'tis dear Ulric—yet, methinks, he 's changed, too:
His cheek is tanned, his frame more firmly knit!
That scar, too, dearest Ulric—I do fear me—
Thou hast been battling with these heretics,
And that 's a Swedish token on thy brow.

Ulric.
My heart is glad with yours—we meet like those
Who never would have parted:—of the past
You shall know more anon—but, here 's a guest
That asks a gentle welcome. Noble Baron,
My father's silence looks discourtesy:
Yet must I plead his pardon—'tis his love
Of a long truant that has rapt him, thus,
From hospitable greeting—you'll be seated—
And, Father, we will sup like famished hunters.

Josepha goes out here.
Stralenheim.
I have much need of rest: no more refreshment!
Were all my people housed within the hamlet,
Or can they follow?

Ulric.
Not to night I fear.
They staid in hope the damaged Cabriole
Might, with the dawn of day, have such repairs,
As circumstance admits of.

Carl.
Nay—that's hopeless.
They must not only mend but draw it too.
The mules are drowned—a murrain on them both!
One kicked me as I would have helped him on.

Stralenheim.
It is most irksome to me—this delay.
I was for Prague on business of great moment.

Werner.
For Prague—Sir—Say you?—

Stralenheim.
Yes, my host! for Prague.
And these vile floods and villainous cross roads
Steal my time from it's uses—but—my people?
Where do they shelter?

Ulric.
In the boatman's shed,
Near to the ferry: you mistook the ford—
Tis higher to the right:—their entertainment
Will be but rough—but 'tis a single night,
And they had best be guardians of the baggage.
The shed will hold the weather from their sleep,
The woodfire warm them—and, for beds, a cloak
Is swansdown to a seasoned traveller:
It has been mine for many a moon, and may
Tonight, for aught it recks me.

Stralenheim.
And tomorrow
I must be on my journey—and betimes.
It is not more than three days travel, hence,
To Mansfeldt Castle.

Werner and Ulric.
Mansfeldt Castle!—

Stralenheim.
Aye!
For thither tends my progress—so, betimes,
Mine host I would be stirring—think of that!
And let me find my couch of rest at present.

Werner.
You shall Sir—but—to Mansfeldt!—

[Ulric stops his father and says aside to him,
[Ulric.]
Silence—father—
Whate'er it be that shakes you thus—tread down—
(To Stralenheim)
My father, Sir, was born not far from Prague,
And knows it's environs—and, when he hears,
The name endeared to him by native thoughts,
He would ask of it, and it's habitants—
You will excuse his plain blunt mode of question.

Stralenheim.
Indeed, perchance, then, he may aid my search.
Pray, know you aught of one named Werner? who
(But he no doubt has passed through many names),
Lived long in Hamburgh—and has thence been traced
Into Silesia—and not far from hence—
But there we lost him; he who can disclose
Aught of him, or his hiding-place, will find
Advantage in revealing it.

Ulric.
Why so—Sir?

Stralenheim.
There are strong reasons to suspect this man
Of crimes against the State—league with Swedes—
And other evil acts of moment:—he
Who shall deliver him, bound hand and foot,
Will benefit his country and himself:
I will reward him doubly too.

Ulric.
You know him?

Stralenheim.
He never met my eyes—but Circumstance
Has led me to near knowledge of the man.
He is a villain—and an enemy
To all men—most to me! If earth contain him,
He shall be found and fettered: I have hopes,
By traces which tomorrow will unravel,
A fresh clue to his lurking spot is nigh.

Carl.
And, if I find it, I will break the thread.
What, all the world against one luckless wight!
And he a fugitive—I would I knew him!

Ulric.
You'd help him to escape—is it not so?

Carl.
I would, indeed!

Ulric.
The greater greenhorn you!
I would secure him—nay—I will do so.

Stralenheim.
If it be so—my gratitude for aid,
And rescue of my life from the wild waters,
Will double in it's strength and it's requital.
Your father, too, perhaps can help our search?

Werner.
I turn a spy—no—not for Mansfeldt Castle,
And all the broad domain it frowns upon.

Stralenheim.
Mansfeldt again!—you know it then? perchance,
You also know the story of it's lords?

Werner.
Whate'er I know, there is no bribe of thine
Can swerve me to the crooked path thou pointest.
The chamber 's ready, which your rest demands.

Stralenheim
(aside).
'Tis strange—this peasant's tone is wondrous high,
His air imperious—and his eye shines out
As wont to look command with a quick glance—
His garb befits him not—why, he may be
The man I look for! now, I look again,
There is the very lip—short curling lip—
And the oerjutting eye-brow dark and large,
And the peculiar wild variety
Of feature, even unto the Viper's eye,
Of that detested race, and it's descendant
Who stands alone between me and a power,
Which Princes gaze at with unquiet eyes!
This is no peasant—but, whate'er he be,
Tomorrow shall secure him and unfold.

Ulric.
It will not please you, Sir, then to remain
With us beyond tomorrow?

Stralenheim.
Nay—I do not say so—there is no haste.
And now I think again—I'll tarry here—
Perhaps until the floods abate—we'll see—
In the mean time—to my chamber—so—Good Night!

[Exit with Werner.
Werner.
This way, Sir.

Carl.
And I to mine: pray, where are we to rest?
We'll sup within—

Ulric.
What matter where—there 's room.

Carl.
I would fain see my way through this vast ruin;
Come take the lamp, and we'll explore together.

Josepha
(meeting them).
And I will with my son.

Ulric.
Nay—stay—dear mother!
These chilly damps and the cold rush of winds
Fling a rough paleness o'er thy delicate cheek—
And thou seem'st lovely in thy sickliness
Of most transparent beauty:—but it grieves me.
Nay! tarry here by the blaze of the bright hearth:—
I will return anon—and we have much
To listen and impart. Come, Carl, we'll find
Some gorgeous canopy, and, thence, unroost
It's present bedfellows the bats—and thou
Shalt slumber underneath a velvet cloud
That mantles o'er the couch of some dead Countess.

[Exit Carl and Ulric.
Josepha
(sola).
It was my joy to see him—nothing more
I should have said—which sent my gush of blood
Back on my full heart with a dancing tide:
It was my weary hope's unthought fulfilment,
My agony of mother=feelings curdled
At once in gathered rapture—which did change
My cheek into the hue of fainting Nature.
I should have answered thus—and yet I could not:
For though 'twas true—it was not all the truth.
I have much suffered in the thought of Werner's
Late deep distemperature of mind and fortunes,
Which since have almost driven him into phrenzy:—
And though that I would soothe, not share, such passions,
And show not how they shake me:—when alone,
I feel them prey upon me by reflection,
And want the very solace I bestowed;
And which, it seems, I cannot give and have.
Ulric must be my comforter—his father's
Hath long been the most melancholy soul
That ever hovered o'er the verge of Madness:
And, better, had he leapt into it's gulph:
Though to the Mad thoughts are realities,
Yet they can play with sorrow—and live on.
But with the mind of consciousness and care
The body wears to ruin, and the struggle,
However long, is deadly— He is lost,
And all around him tasteless:—in his mirth
His very laughter moves me oft to tears,
And I have turned to hide them—for, in him,
As Sunshine glittering o'er unburied bones—
Soft—he is here.—

Werner.
Josepha—where is Ulric?

Josepha.
Gone with the other stranger to gaze o'er
These shattered corridors, and spread themselves
A pillow with their mantles, in the least ruinous:
I must replenish the diminished hearth
In the inner chamber—the repast is ready,
And Ulric will be here again.—

THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:

A DRAMA.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

• Stranger, afterwards Cæsar.
• Arnold.
• Bourbon.
• Philibert.
• Cellini.
• Bertha.
• Olimpia.
• Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome, Priests, Peasants, etc.

I. PART I.

Scene I.

—A Forest.
Enter Arnold and his mother Bertha.
Bert.
Out, Hunchback!

Arn.
I was born so, Mother!

Bert.
Out,
Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons,
The sole abortion!

Arn.
Would that I had been so,
And never seen the light!

Bert.
I would so, too!
But as thou hast—hence, hence—and do thy best!
That back of thine may bear its burthen; 'tis
More high, if not so broad as that of others.

Arn.
It bears its burthen;—but, my heart! Will it
Sustain that which you lay upon it, Mother?
I love, or, at the least, I loved you: nothing
Save You, in nature, can love aught like me.
You nursed me—do not kill me!

Bert.
Yes—I nursed thee,
Because thou wert my first-born, and I knew not
If there would be another unlike thee,
That monstrous sport of Nature. But get hence,
And gather wood!

Arn.
I will: but when I bring it,
Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
So beautiful and lusty, and as free
As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me:
Our milk has been the same.

Bert.
As is the hedgehog's,
Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds
The nipple, next day, sore, and udder dry.
Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, urchin, out!

[Exit Bertha.
Arn.
(solus).
Oh, mother!—She is gone, and I must do
Her bidding;—wearily but willingly
I would fulfil it, could I only hope
A kind word in return. What shall I do?
[Arnold begins to cut wood: in doing this he wounds one of his hands.
My labour for the day is over now.
Accurséd be this blood that flows so fast;
For double curses will be my meed now
At home—What home? I have no home, no kin,
No kind—not made like other creatures, or
To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed, too,
Like them? Oh, that each drop which falls to earth
Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me!
Or that the Devil, to whom they liken me,
Would aid his likeness! If I must partake
His form, why not his power? Is it because
I have not his will too? For one kind word
From her who bore me would still reconcile me
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
The wound.
[Arnold goes to a spring, and stoops to wash his hand: he starts back.
They are right; and Nature's mirror shows me,
What she hath made me. I will not look on it
Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous wretch
That I am! The very waters mock me with
My horrid shadow—like a demon placed
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
From drinking therein.
[He pauses.
[Arnold places the knife in the ground, with the point upwards.
Now 'tis set,
And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warmed me, but
In vain. The birds—how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!
[As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife, his eye is suddenly caught by the fountain, which seems in motion.
The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane
And rocking Power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more?—

[A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing upon it: it is dispelled, and a tall black man comes towards him.
Arn.
What would you? Speak!
Spirit or man?

Stran.
As man is both, why not
Say both in one?

Arn.
Your form is man's, and yet
You may be devil.

Stran.
So many men are that
Which is so called or thought, that you may add me
To which you please, without much wrong to either.
But come: you wish to kill yourself;—pursue
Your purpose.

Arn.
You have interrupted me.

Stran.
What is that resolution which can e'er
Be interrupted? If I be the devil
You deem, a single moment would have made you
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide;
And yet my coming saves you.

Arn.
I said not
You were the Demon, but that your approach
Was like one.

Stran.
Unless you keep company
With him (and you seem scarce used to such high
Society) you can't tell how he approaches;
And for his aspect, look upon the fountain,
And then on me, and judge which of us twain
Looks likest what the boors believe to be
Their cloven-footed terror.

Arn.
Do you—dare you
To taunt me with my born deformity?

Stran.
Were I to taunt a buffalo with this
Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary
With thy Sublime of Humps, the animals
Would revel in the compliment. And yet
Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty
In action and endurance than thyself,
And all the fierce and fair of the same kind
With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas only
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow
The gifts which are of others upon man.

Arn.
Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,
When he spurns high the dust, beholding his
Near enemy; or let me have the long
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
The helmless dromedary!—and I'll bear
Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.

Stran.
I will.

Arn.
(with surprise).
Thou canst?

Stran.
Perhaps. Would you aught else?

Arn.
Thou mockest me.

Stran.
Not I. Why should I mock
What all are mocking? That 's poor sport, methinks.
To talk to thee in human language (for
Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester
Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar,
Or wolf, or lion—leaving paltry game
To petty burghers, who leave once a year
Their walls, to fill their household cauldrons with
Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee,—
Now I can mock the mightiest.

Arn.
Then waste not
Thy time on me: I seek thee not.

Stran.
Your thoughts
Are not far from me. Do not send me back:
I'm not so easily recalled to do
Good service.

Arn.
What wilt thou do for me?

Stran.
Change
Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks you;
Or form you to your wish in any shape.

Arn.
Oh! then you are indeed the Demon, for
Nought else would wittingly wear mine.

Stran.
I'll show thee
The brightest which the world e'er bore, and give thee
Thy choice.

Arn.
On what condition?

Stran.
There's a question!
An hour ago you would have given your soul
To look like other men, and now you pause
To wear the form of heroes.

Arn.
No; I will not.
I must not compromise my soul.

Stran.
What soul,
Worth naming so, would dwell in such a carcase?

Arn.
'Tis an aspiring one, whate'er the tenement
In which it is mislodged. But name your compact:
Must it be signed in blood?

Stran.
Not in your own.

Arn.
Whose blood then?

Stran.
We will talk of that hereafter.
But I'll be moderate with you, for I see
Great things within you. You shall have no bond
But your own will, no contract save your deeds.
Are you content?

Arn.
I take thee at thy word.

Stran.
[The Stranger approaches the fountain, and turns to Arnold.

Arn.
For what?

Stran.
To mingle with the magic of the waters,
And make the charm effective.

Arn.
(holding out his wounded arm).
Take it all.

Stran.
Not now. A few drops will suffice for this.
[The Stranger takes some of Arnold's blood in his hand, and casts it into the fountain.
Shadows of Beauty!
Shadows of Power!
Rise to your duty—
This is the hour!
Walk lovely and pliant
From the depth of this fountain,
As the cloud-shapen giant
Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.
Come as ye were,
That our eyes may behold
The model in air
Of the form I will mould,
Bright as the Iris
When ether is spanned;—
Such his desire is,
[Pointing to Arnold.
Such my command!
Demons heroic—
Demons who wore
The form of the Stoic
Or sophist of yore—
Or the shape of each victor—
From Macedon's boy,
To each high Roman's picture,
Who breathed to destroy—
Shadows of Beauty!
Shadows of Power!
Up to your duty—
This is the hour!

[Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the Stranger and Arnold.
Arn.
What do I see?

Stran.
The black-eyed Roman, with
The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er
Beheld a conqueror, or looked along
The land he made not Rome's, while Rome became
His, and all theirs who heired his very name.

Arn.
The phantom 's bald; my quest is beauty. Could I
Inherit but his fame with his defects!

Stran.
His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs.
You see his aspect—choose it, or reject.
I can but promise you his form; his fame
Must be long sought and fought for.

Arn.
I will fight, too,
But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass:
His aspect may be fair, but suits me not.

Stran.
Then you are far more difficult to please
Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus's mother,
Or Cleopatra at sixteen—an age
When love is not less in the eye than heart.
But be it so! Shadow, pass on!

[The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears.
Arn.
And can it
Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone,
And left no footstep?

Stran.
There you err. His substance
Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame
More than enough to track his memory;
But for his shadow—'tis no more than yours,
Except a little longer and less crooked
I' the sun. Behold another!

[A second phantom passes.
Arn.
Who is he?

Stran.
He was the fairest and the bravest of
Athenians. Look upon him well.

Arn.
He is
More lovely than the last. How beautiful!

Stran.
Such was the curled son of Clinias;—wouldst thou
Invest thee with his form?

Arn.
Would that I had
Been born with it! But since I may choose further,
I will look further.

[The shade of Alcibiades disappears.
Stran.
Lo! behold again!

Arn.
What! that low, swarthy, short-nosed, round-eyed satyr,
With the wide nostrils and Silenus' aspect,
The splay feet and low stature! I had better
Remain that which I am.

Stran.
And yet he was
The earth's perfection of all mental beauty,
And personification of all virtue.
But you reject him?

Arn.
If his form could bring me
That which redeemed it—no.

Stran.
I have no power
To promise that; but you may try, and find it
Easier in such a form—or in your own.

Arn.
No. I was not born for philosophy,
Though I have that about me which has need on't.
Let him fleet on.

Stran.
Be air, thou Hemlock-drinker!

[The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises.
Arn.
What's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard
And manly aspect look like Hercules,
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.

Stran.
It was the man who lost
The ancient world for love.

Arn.
I cannot blame him,
Since I have risked my soul because I find not
That which he exchanged the earth for.

Stran.
Since so far
You seem congenial, will you wear his features?

Arn.
No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult.
If but to see the heroes I should ne'er
Have seen else, on this side of the dim shore,
Whence they float back before us.

Stran.
Hence, Triumvir,
Thy Cleopatra 's waiting.

[The shade of Antony disappears: another rises.
Arn.
Who is this?
Who truly looketh like a demigod,
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stature,
If not more high than mortal, yet immortal
In all that nameless bearing of his limbs,
Which he wears as the Sun his rays—a something
Which shines from him, and yet is but the flashing
Emanation of a thing more glorious still.
Was he e'er human only?

Stran.
Let the earth speak,
If there be atoms of him left, or even
Of the more solid gold that formed his urn.

Arn.
Who was this glory of mankind?

Stran.
The shame
Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war—
Demetrius the Macedonian, and
Taker of cities.

Arn.
Yet one shadow more.

Stran.
(addressing the shadow).
[The shade of Demetrius Poliorcetes vanishes: another rises.

Arn.
Content! I will fix here.

Stran.
I must commend
Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess,
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
Of rich Pactolus, rolled o'er sands of gold,
Softened by intervening crystal, and
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,
All vowed to Sperchius as they were—behold them!
And him—as he stood by Polixena,
With sanctioned and with softened love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece looked her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.

Arn.
I gaze upon him
As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon
Envelope mine.

Stran.
You have done well. The greatest
Deformity should only barter with
The extremest beauty—if the proverb 's true
Of mortals, that Extremes meet.

Arn.
Come! Be quick!
I am impatient.

Stran.
As a youthful beauty
Before her glass. You both see what is not,
But dream it is what must be.

Arn.
Must I wait?

Stran.
No; that were a pity. But a word or two:
His stature is twelve cubits; would you so far
Outstep these times, and be a Titan? Or
(To talk canonically) wax a son
Of Anak?

Arn.
Why not?

Stran.
Glorious ambition!
I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of
Philistine stature would have gladly pared
His own Goliath down to a slight David:
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show
Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
If such be thy desire; and, yet, by being
A little less removed from present men
In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt
A new-found Mammoth; and their curséd engines,
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
Through our friend's armour there, with greater ease
Than the Adulterer's arrow through his heel
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize
In Styx.

Arn.
Then let it be as thou deem'st best.

Stran.
Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou seest,
And strong as what it was, and—

Arn.
I ask not
For Valour, since Deformity is daring.
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal—
Aye, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free to both, to compensate
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune,
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar, win them.

Stran.
Well spoken! And thou doubtless wilt remain
Formed as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
This daring soul, which could achieve no less
Without it.

Arn.
Had no power presented me
The possibility of change, I would
Have done the best which spirit may to make
Its way with all Deformity's dull, deadly,
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders—
A hateful and unsightly molehill to
The eyes of happier men. I would have looked
On Beauty in that sex which is the type
Of all we know or dream of beautiful,
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh—
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
Though to a heart all love, what could not love me
In turn, because of this vile crookéd clog,
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
It all, had not my mother spurned me from her.
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort
Of shape;—my Dam beheld my shape was hopeless.
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere
I knew the passionate part of life, I had
Been a clod of the valley,—happier nothing
Than what I am. But even thus—the lowest,
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind—what courage
And perseverance could have done, perchance
Had made me something—as it has made heroes
Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
And he who is so is the master of
Whatever dreads to die.

Stran.
Decide between
What you have been, or will be.

Arn.
I have done so.
You have opened brighter prospects to my eyes,
And sweeter to my heart. As I am now,
I might be feared—admired—respected—loved
Of all save those next to me, of whom I
Would be belovéd. As thou showest me
A choice of forms, I take the one I view.
Haste! haste!

Stran.
And what shall I wear?

Arn.
Surely, he
Who can command all forms will choose the highest,
Something superior even to that which was
Pelides now before us. Perhaps his
Who slew him, that of Paris: or—still higher—
The Poet's God, clothed in such limbs as are
Themselves a poetry.

Stran.
Less will content me;
For I, too, love a change.

Arn.
Your aspect is
Dusky, but not uncomely.

Stran.
If I chose,
I might be whiter; but I have a penchant
For black—it is so honest, and, besides,
Can neither blush with shame nor pale with fear;
But I have worn it long enough of late,
And now I'll take your figure.

Arn.
Mine!

Stran.
Yes. You
Shall change with Thetis' son, and I with Bertha,
Your mother's offspring. People have their tastes;
You have yours—I mine.

Arn.
Despatch! despatch!

Stran.
[The Stranger takes some earth and moulds it along the turf, and then addresses the phantom of Achilles.

[Arnold falls senseless; his soul passes into the shape of Achilles, which rises from the ground; while the phantom has disappeared, part by part, as the figure was formed from the earth.
Arn.
(in his new form).
I love, and I shall be beloved! Oh, life!
At last I feel thee! Glorious Spirit!

Stran.
Stop!
What shall become of your abandoned garment,
Yon hump, and lump, and clod of ugliness,
Which late you wore, or were?

Arn.
Who cares? Let wolves
And vultures take it, if they will.

Stran.
And if
They do, and are not scared by it, you'll say
It must be peace-time, and no better fare
Abroad i' the fields.

Arn.
Let us but leave it there;
No matter what becomes on't.

Stran.
That's ungracious;
If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be,
It hath sustained your soul full many a day.

Arn.
Aye, as the dunghill may conceal a gem
Which is now set in gold, as jewels should be.

Stran.
But if I give another form, it must be
By fair exchange, not robbery. For they
Who make men without women's aid have long
Had patents for the same, and do not love
Your Interlopers. The Devil may take men,
Not make them,—though he reap the benefit
Of the original workmanship:—and therefore
Some one must be found to assume the shape
You have quitted.

Arn.
Who would do so?

Stran.
That I know not,
And therefore I must.

Arn.
You!

Stran.
I said it ere
You inhabited your present dome of beauty.

Arn.
True. I forget all things in the new joy
Of this immortal change.

Stran.
In a few moments
I will be as you were, and you shall see
Yourself for ever by you, as your shadow.

Arn.
I would be spared this.

Stran.
But it cannot be.
What! shrink already, being what you are,
From seeing what you were?

Arn.
Do as thou wilt.

Stran.
(to the late form of Arnold, extended on the earth).
Clay! not dead, but soul-less!
Though no man would choose thee,
An Immortal no less
Deigns not to refuse thee.
Clay thou art; and unto spirit
All clay is of equal merit.
Fire! without which nought can live;
Fire! but in which nought can live,
Save the fabled salamander,
Or immortal souls, which wander,
Praying what doth not forgive,
Howling for a drop of water,
Burning in a quenchless lot:
Fire! the only element
Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm,
Save the Worm which dieth not,
Can preserve a moment's form,
But must with thyself be blent:
Fire! man's safeguard and his slaughter:
Fire! Creation's first-born Daughter,
And Destruction's threatened Son,
When Heaven with the world hath done:
Fire! assist me to renew
Life in what lies in my view
Stiff and cold!
His resurrection rests with me and you!
One little, marshy spark of flame—
And he again shall seem the same;
But I his Spirit's place shall hold!

[An ignis-fatuus flits through the wood and rests on the brow of the body. The Stranger disappears: the body rises.
Arn.
(in his new form).
Oh! horrible!

Stran.
(in Arnold's late shape).
What! tremblest thou?

Arn.
Not so—
I merely shudder. Where is fled the shape
Thou lately worest?

Stran.
To the world of shadows.
But let us thread the present. Whither wilt thou?

Arn.
Must thou be my companion?

Stran.
Wherefore not?
Your betters keep worse company.

Arn.
My betters!

Stran.
Oh! you wax proud, I see, of your new form:
I'm glad of that. Ungrateful too! That 's well;
You improve apace;—two changes in an instant,
And you are old in the World's ways already.
But bear with me: indeed you'll find me useful
Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pronounce
Where shall we now be errant?

Arn.
Where the World
Is thickest, that I may behold it in
Its workings.

Stran.
That 's to say, where there is War
And Woman in activity. Let's see!
Spain—Italy—the new Atlantic world—
Afric with all its Moors. In very truth,
There i small choice: the whole race are just now
Tugging as usual at each other's hearts.

Arn.
I have heard great things of Rome.

Stran.
A goodly choice—
And scarce a better to be found on earth,
Since Sodom was put out. The field is wide too;
For now the Frank, and Hun, and Spanish scion
Of the old Vandals, are at play along
The sunny shores of the World's garden.

Arn.
How
Shall we proceed?

Stran.
Like gallants, on good coursers.
What, ho! my chargers! Never yet were better,
Since Phaeton was upset into the Po.
Our pages too!

Enter two Pages, with four coal-black horses.
Arn.
A noble sight!

Stran.
And of
A nobler breed. Match me in Barbary,
Or your Kochlini race of Araby,
With these!

Arn.
The mighty steam, which volumes high
From their proud nostrils, burns the very air;
And sparks of flame, like dancing fire-flies wheel
Around their manes, as common insects swarm
Round common steeds towards sunset.

Stran.
Mount, my lord:
They and I are your servitors.

Arn.
And these
Our dark-eyed pages—what may be their names?

Stran.
You shall baptize them.

Arn.
What! in holy water?

Stran.
Why not? The deeper sinner, better saint.

Arn.
They are beautiful, and cannot, sure, be demons.

Stran.
True; the devil's always ugly: and your beauty
Is never diabolical.

Arn.
I'll call him
Who bears the golden horn, and wears such bright
And blooming aspect, Huon; for he looks
Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest,
And never found till now. And for the other
And darker, and more thoughtful, who smiles not,
But looks as serious though serene as night,
He shall be Memnon, from the Ethiop king
Whose statue turns a harper once a day.
And you?

Stran.
I have ten thousand names, and twice
As many attributes; but as I wear
A human shape, will take a human name.

Arn.
More human than the shape (though it was mine once)
I trust.

Stran.
Then call me Cæsar.

Arn.
Why, that name
Belongs to Empire, and has been but borne
By the World's lords.

Stran.
And therefore fittest for
The Devil in disguise—since so you deem me,
Unless you call me Pope instead.

Arn.
Well, then,
Cæsar thou shalt be. For myself, my name
Shall be plain Arnold still.

Cæs.
We'll add a title—
“Count Arnold:” it hath no ungracious sound,
And will look well upon a billet-doux.

Arn.
Or in an order for a battle-field.

Cæs.
(sings).
To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed
Paws the ground and snuffs the air!
There 's not a foal of Arab's breed
More knows whom he must bear;
On the hill he will not tire,
Swifter as it waxes higher;
In the marsh he will not slacken,
On the plain be overtaken;
In the wave he will not sink,
Nor pause at the brook's side to drink;
In the race he will not pant,
In the combat he'll not faint;
On the stones he will not stumble,
Time nor toil shall make him humble;
In the stall he will not stiffen,
But be wingèd as a Griffin,
Only flying with his feet:
And will not such a voyage be sweet?
Merrily! merrily! never unsound,
Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground!
From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly!
For we'll leave them behind in the glance of an eye.

[They mount their horses, and disappear.

Scene II.

—A Camp before the walls of Rome.
Arnold and Cæsar.
Cæs.
You are well entered now.

Arn.
Aye; but my path
Has been o'er carcasses: mine eyes are full
Of blood.

Cæs.
Then wipe them, and see clearly. Why!
Thou art a conqueror; the chosen knight
And free companion of the gallant Bourbon,
Late constable of France; and now to be
Lord of the city which hath been Earth's Lord
Under its emperors, and—changing sex,
Not sceptre, an Hermaphrodite of Empire—
Lady of the old world.

Arn.
How old? What! are there
New worlds?

Cæs.
To you. You'll find there are such shortly,
By its rich harvests, new disease, and gold;
From one half of the world named a whole new one,
Because you know no better than the dull
And dubious notice of your eyes and ears.

Arn.
I'll trust them.

Cæs.
Do! They will deceive you sweetly,
And that is better than the bitter truth.

Arn.
Dog!

Cæs.
Man!

Arn.
Devil!

Cæs.
Your obedient humble servant.

Arn.
Say master rather. Thou hast lured me on,
Through scenes of blood and lust, till I am here.

Cœs.
And where wouldst thou be?

Arn.
Oh, at peace—in peace!

Cæs.
And where is that which is so? From the star
To the winding worm, all life is motion; and
In life commotion is the extremest point
Of life. The planet wheels till it becomes
A comet, and destroying as it sweeps
The stars, goes out. The poor worm winds its way,
Living upon the death of other things,
But still, like them, must live and die, the subject
Of something which has made it live and die.
You must obey what all obey, the rule
Of fixed Necessity: against her edict
Rebellion prospers not.

Arn.
And when it prospers—

Cæs.
'Tis no rebellion.

Arn.
Will it prosper now?

Cæs.
The Bourbon hath given orders for the assault,
And by the dawn there will be work.

Arn.
Alas!
And shall the city yield? I see the giant
Abode of the true God, and his true saint,
Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into
That sky whence Christ ascended from the cross,
Which his blood made a badge of glory and
Of joy (as once of torture unto him),—
God and God's Son, man's sole and only refuge!

Cæs.
'Tis there, and shall be.

Arn.
What?

Cæs.
The Crucifix
Above, and many altar shrines below.
Also some culverins upon the walls,
And harquebusses, and what not; besides
The men who are to kindle them to death
Of other men.

Arn.
And those scarce mortal arches,
Pile above pile of everlasting wall,
The theatre where Emperors and their subjects
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze upon
The battles of the monarchs of the wild
And wood—the lion and his tusky rebels
Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust
In the arena—as right well they might,
When they had left no human foe unconquered—
Made even the forest pay its tribute of
Life to their amphitheatre, as well
As Dacia men to die the eternal death
For a sole instant's pastime, and “Pass on
To a new gladiator!”—Must it fall?

Cæs.
The city, or the amphitheatre?
The church, or one, or all? for you confound
Both them and me.

Arn.
To-morrow sounds the assault
With the first cock-crow.

Cæs.
Which, if it end with
The evening's first nightingale, will be
Something new in the annals of great sieges;
For men must have their prey after long toil.
Arn. The sun goes down as calmly, and perhaps
More beautifully, than he did on Rome
On the day Remus leapt her wall.

Cæs.
I saw him.

Arn.
You!

Cæs.
Yes, Sir! You forget I am or was
Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape,
And a worse name. I'm Cæsar and a hunch-back
Now. Well! the first of Cæsars was a bald-head,
And loved his laurels better as a wig
(So history says) than as a glory. Thus
The world runs on, but we'll be merry still.
I saw your Romulus (simple as I am)
Slay his own twin, quick-born of the same womb,
Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no wall,
Whate'er it now be); and Rome's earliest cement
Was brother's blood; and if its native blood
Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red
As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear
The deep hue of the Ocean and the Earth,
Which the great robber sons of fratricide
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter,
For ages.

Arn.
But what have these done, their far
Remote descendants, who have lived in peace,
The peace of Heaven, and in her sunshine of
Piety?

Cæs.
And what had they done, whom the old
Romans o'erswept?—Hark!

Arn.
They are soldiers singing
A reckless roundelay, upon the eve
Of many deaths, it may be of their own.

Cæs.
And why should they not sing as well as swans?
They are black ones, to be sure.

Arn.
So, you are learned,
I see, too?

Cæs.
In my grammar, certes. I
Was educated for a monk of all times,
And once I was well versed in the forgotten
Etruscan letters, and—were I so minded—
Could make their hieroglyphics plainer than
Your alphabet.

Arn.
And wherefore do you not?

Cæs.
It answers better to resolve the alphabet
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,
Philosopher, and what not, they have built
More Babels, without new dispersion, than
The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze,
Who failed and fled each other. Why? why, marry,
Because no man could understand his neighbour.
They are wiser now, and will not separate
For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
Their Shibboleth—their Koran—Talmud—their
Cabala—their best brick-work, wherewithal
They build more—

Arn.
(interrupting him).
Oh, thou everlasting sneerer!
Be silent! How the soldier's rough strain seems
Softened by distance to a hymn-like cadence!
Listen!

Cæs.
Yes. I have heard the angels sing.

Arn.
And demons howl.

Cæs.
And man, too. Let us listen:
I love all music.

Song of the Soldiers within.
The black bands came over
The Alps and their snow;
With Bourbon, the rover,
They passed the broad Po.
We have beaten all foemen,
We have captured a King,
We have turned back on no men,
And so let us sing!
Here's the Bourbon for ever!
Though penniless all,
We'll have one more endeavour
At yonder old wall.
With the Bourbon we'll gather
At day-dawn before
The gates, and together
Or break or climb o'er
The wall: on the ladder,
As mounts each firm foot,
Our shout shall grow gladder,
And Death only be mute.
With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er
The walls of old Rome,
And who then shall count o'er
The spoils of each dome?
Up! up with the Lily!
And down with the Keys!
In old Rome, the seven-hilly,
We'll revel at ease.
Her streets shall be gory,
Her Tiber all red,
And her temples so hoary
Shall clang with our tread.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
The Bourbon for aye!
Of our song bear the burden!
And fire, fire away!
With Spain for the vanguard,
Our varied host comes;
And next to the Spaniard
Beat Germany's drums;
And Italy's lances
Are couched at their mother;
But our leader from France is,
Who warred with his brother.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
Sans country or home,
We'll follow the Bourbon,
To plunder old Rome.
Cæs.
An indifferent song
For those within the walls, methinks, to hear.

Arn.
Yes, if they keep to their chorus. But here comes
The general with his chiefs and men of trust.
A goodly rebel.

Enter the Constable Bourbon “cum suis,” etc., etc.
Phil.
How now, noble Prince,
You are not cheerful?

Bourb.
Why should I be so?

Phil.
Upon the eve of conquest, such as ours,
Most men would be so.

Bourb.
If I were secure!

Phil.
Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of adamant,
They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery.

Bourb.
That they will falter is my least of fears.
That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for
Their chief, and all their kindled appetites
To marshal them on—were those hoary walls
Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods
Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans;—
But now—

Phil.
They are but men who war with mortals.

Bourb.
True: but those walls have girded in great ages,
And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth
And present phantom of imperious Rome
Is peopled with those warriors; and methinks
They flit along the eternal City's rampart,
And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands,
And beckon me away!

Phil.
So let them! Wilt thou
Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows?

Bourb.
They do not menace me. I could have faced,
Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp,
And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands,
And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes
Fascinate mine. Look there!

Phil.
I look upon
A lofty battlement.

Bourb.
And there!

Phil.
Not even
A guard in sight; they wisely keep below,
Sheltered by the grey parapet from some
Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might
Practise in the cool twilight.

Bourb.
You are blind.

Phil.
If seeing nothing more than may be seen
Be so.

Bourb.
A thousand years have manned the walls
With all their heroes,—the last Cato stands
And tears his bowels, rather than survive
The liberty of that I would enslave.
And the first Cæsar with his triumphs flits
From battlement to battlement.

Phil.
Then conquer
The walls for which he conquered and be greater!

Bourb.
True: so I will, or perish.

Phil.
You can not.
In such an enterprise to die is rather
The dawn of an eternal day, than death.

[Count Arnold and Cæsar advanœ.
Cæs.
And the mere men—do they, too, sweat beneath
The noon of this same ever-scorching glory?

Bourb.
Ah!
Welcome the bitter Hunchback! and his master,
The beauty of our host, and brave as beauteous,
And generous as lovely. We shall find
Work for you both ere morning.

Cæs.
You will find,
So please your Highness, no less for yourself.

Bourb.
And if I do, there will not be a labourer
More forward, Hunchback!

Cæs.
You may well say so,
For you have seen that back—as general,
Placed in the rear in action—but your foes
Have never seen it.

Bourb.
That 's a fair retort,
For I provoked it:—but the Bourbon's breast
Has been, and ever shall be, far advanced
In danger's face as yours, were you the devil.

Cæs.
And if I were, I might have saved myself
The toil of coming here.

Phil.
Why so?

Cæs.
One half
Of your brave bands of their own bold accord
Will go to him, the other half be sent,
More swiftly, not less surely.

Bourb.
Arnold, your
Slight crooked friend's as snake-like in his words
As his deeds.

Cæs.
Your Highness much mistakes me.
The first snake was a flatterer—I am none;
And for my deeds, I only sting when stung.

Bourb.
You are brave, and that's enough for me; and quick
In speech as sharp in action—and that's more.
I am not alone the soldier, but the soldiers'
Comrade.

Cæs.
They are but bad company, your Highness;
And worse even for their friends than foes, as being
More permanent acquaintance.

Phil.
How now, fellow!
Thou waxest insolent, beyond the privilege
Of a buffoon.

Cæs.
You mean I speak the truth.
I'll lie—it is as easy: then you'll praise me
For calling you a hero.

Bourb.
Philibert!
Let him alone; he's brave, and ever has
Been first, with that swart face and mountain shoulder,
In field or storm, and patient in starvation;
And for his tongue, the camp is full of licence,
And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue
Is, to my mind, far preferable to
The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration
Of a mere famished sullen grumbling slave,
Whom nothing can convince save a full meal,
And wine, and sleep, and a few Maravedis,
With which he deems him rich.

Cæs.
It would be well
If the earth's princes asked no more.

Bourb.
Be silent!

Cæs.
Aye, but not idle. Work yourself with words!
You have few to speak.

Phil.
What means the audacious prater?

Cæs.
To prate, like other prophets.

Bourb.
Philibert!
Why will you vex him? Have we not enough
To think on? Arnold! I will lead the attack
To-morrow.

Arn.
I have heard as much, my Lord.

Bourb.
And you will follow?

Arn.
Since I must not lead.

Bourb.
'Tis necessary for the further daring
Of our too needy army, that their chief
Plant the first foot upon the foremost ladder's
First step.

Cæs.
Upon its topmost, let us hope:
So shall he have his full deserts.

Bourb.
The world's
Great capital perchance is ours to-morrow.
Through every change the seven-hilled city hath
Retained her sway o'er nations, and the Cæsars
But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics
Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or priest,
Still the world's masters! Civilised, barbarian,
Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus
Have been the circus of an Empire. Well!
'Twas their turn—now 'tis ours; and let us hope
That we will fight as well, and rule much better.

Cæs.
No doubt, the camp's the school of civic rights.
What would you make of Rome?

Bourb.
That which it was.

Cæs.
In Alaric's time?

Bourb.
No, slave! in the first Cæsar's,
Whose name you bear like other curs—

Cæs.
And kings!
'Tis a great name for blood-hounds.

Bourb.
There's a demon
In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. Wilt never
Be serious?

Cæs.
On the eve of battle, no;—
That were not soldier-like. 'Tis for the general
To be more pensive: we adventurers
Must be more cheerful. Wherefore should we think?
Our tutelar Deity, in a leader's shape,
Takes care of us. Keep thought aloof from hosts!
If the knaves take to thinking, you will have
To crack those walls alone.

Bourb.
You may sneer, since
'Tis lucky for you that you fight no worse for 't.

Cæs.
I thank you for the freedom; 'tis the only
Pay I have taken in your Highness' service.

Bourb.
Well, sir, to-morrow you shall pay yourself.
Look on those towers; they hold my treasury:
But, Philibert, we'll in to council. Arnold,
We would request your presence.

Arn.
Prince! my service
Is yours, as in the field.

Bourb.
In both we prize it,
And yours will be a post of trust at daybreak.

Cæs.
And mine?

Bourb.
To follow glory with the Bourbon.
Good night!

Arn.
(to Cæsar).
Prepare our armour for the assault,
And wait within my tent.

[Exeunt Bourbon, Arnold, Philibert, etc.
Cæs.
(solus).
Within thy tent!
Think'st thou that I pass from thee with my presence?
Or that this crooked coffer, which contained
Thy principle of life, is aught to me
Except a mask? And these are men, forsooth!
Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam's bastards!
This is the consequence of giving matter
The power of thought. It is a stubborn substance,
And thinks chaotically, as it acts,
Ever relapsing into its first elements.
Well! I must play with these poor puppets: 'tis
The Spirit's pastime in his idler hours.
When I grow weary of it, I have business
Amongst the stars, which these poor creatures deem
Were made for them to look at. 'Twere a jest now
To bring one down amongst them, and set fire
Unto their anthill: how the pismires then
Would scamper o'er the scalding soil, and, ceasing
From tearing down each other's nests, pipe forth
One universal orison! ha! ha!

[Exit Cæsar.

II. PART II.

Scene I.

—Before the walls of Rome.—The Assault: the Army in motion, with ladders to scale the walls; Bourbon with a white scarf over his armour, foremost.
Chorus of Spirits in the air.

[Bourbon, Arnold, Cæsar, and others, arrive at the foot of the wall. Arnold is about to plant his ladder.
Bourb.
Hold, Arnold! I am first.

Arn.
Not so, my Lord.

Bourb.
Hold, sir, I charge you! Follow! I am proud
Of such a follower, but will brook no leader.
[Bourbon plants his ladder, and begins to moust.
Now, boys! On! on!

[A shot strikes him, and Bourbon falls.
Cæs.
And off!

Arn.
Eternal powers!
The host will be appalled,—but vengeance! vengeance!

Bourb.
[Bourbon takes Arnold by the hand, and rises; but as he puts his foot on the step, falls again.

Arn.
You must be
Removed; the aid of—

Bourb.
No, my gallant boy!
Death is upon me. But what is one life?
The Bourbon's spirit shall command them still.
Keep them yet ignorant that I am but clay,
Till they are conquerors—then do as you may.

Cæs.
Would not your Highness choose to kiss the cross?
We have no priest here, but the hilt of sword
May serve instead:—it did the same for Bayard.

Bourb.
Thou bitter slave! to name him at this time!
But I deserve it.

Arn.
(to Cæsar).
Villain, hold your peace!

Cæs.
What, when a Christian dies? Shall I not offer
A Christian “Vade in pace?”

Arn.
Silence! Oh!
Those eyes are glazing which o'erlooked the world,
And saw no equal.

Bourb.
Arnold, shouldst thou see
France—But hark! hark! the assault grows warmer—Oh!
For but an hour, a minute more of life,
To die within the wall! Hence, Arnold, hence!
You lose time—they will conquer Rome without thee.

Arn.
And without thee.

Bourb.
Not so; I'll lead them still
In spirit. Cover up my dust, and breathe not
That I have ceased to breathe. Away! and be
Victorious.

Arn.
But I must not leave thee thus.

Bourb.
You must—farewell—Up! up! the world is winning.

[Bourbon dies.
Cæs.
(to Arnold).
Come, Count, to business.

Arn.
True. I'll weep hereafter.
[Arnold covers Bourbon's body with a mantle, mounts the ladder, crying
The Bourbon! Bourbon! On, boys! Rome is ours!

Cæs.
Good night, Lord Constable! thou wert a Man.

[Cæsar follows Arnold; they reach the battlement; Arnold and Cæsar are struck down.
Cæs.
A precious somerset! Is your countship injured?

Arn.
No.

[Remounts the ladder.
Cæs.
A rare blood-hound, when his own is heated!
And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down!
His hand is on the battlement—he grasps it
As though it were an altar; now his foot
Is on it, and—What have we here?—a Roman?
The first bird of the covey! he has fallen
[A man falls.
On the outside of the nest. Why, how now, fellow?

Wounded Man.
A drop of water!

Cæs.
Blood's the only liquid
Nearer than Tiber.

Wounded Man.
I have died for Rome.

[Dies.
Cæs.
And so did Bourbon, in another sense.
Oh, these immortal men! and their great motives!
But I must after my young charge. He is
By this time i' the Forum. Charge! charge!

[Cæsar mounts the ladder; the scene closes.

Scene II.

—The City.—Combats between the Besiegers and Besieged in the streets. Inhabitants flying in confusion.
Enter Cæsar.
Cæs.
Enter a Party fighting—Arnold at the head of the Besiegers.

Arn.
Away! they must not rally.

Cæs.
I tell thee, be not rash; a golden bridge
Is for a flying enemy. I gave thee
A form of beauty, and an
Exemption from some maladies of body,
But not of mind, which is not mine to give.
But though I gave the form of Thetis' son,
I dipped thee not in Styx; and 'gainst a foe
I would not warrant thy chivalric heart
More than Pelides; heel; why, then, be cautious,
And know thyself a mortal still.

Arn.
And who
With aught of soul would combat if he were
Invulnerable? That were pretty sport.
Think'st thou I beat for hares when lions roar?

[Arnold rushes into the combat.
Cæs.
A precious sample of humanity!
Well, his blood's up; and, if a little 's shed,
'Twill serve to curb his fever.

[Arnold engages with a Roman, who retires towards a portico.
Arn.
Yield thee, slave!
I promise quarter.

Rom.
That's soon said.

Arn.
And done—
My word is known.

Rom.
So shall be my deeds.

[They re-engage. Cæsar comes forward.
Cæs.
Why, Arnold! hold thine own: thou hast in hand
A famous artisan, a cunning sculptor;
Also a dealer in the sword and dagger.
Not so, my musqueteer; 'twas he who slew
The Bourbon from the wall.

Arn.
Aye, did he so?
Then he hath carved his monument.

Rom.
I yet
May live to carve your better's.

Cæs.
Well said, my man of marble! Benvenuto,
Thou hast some practice in both ways; and he
Who slays Cellini will have worked as hard
As e'er thou didst upon Carrara's blocks.

[Arnold disarms and wounds Cellini, but slightly: the latter draws a pistol, and fires; then retires, and disappears through the portico.
Cæs.
How farest thou? Thou hast a taste, methinks,
Of red Bellona's banquet.

Arn.
(staggers).
'Tis a scratch.
Lend me thy scarf. He shall not 'scape me thus.

Cæs.
Where is it?

Arn.
In the shoulder, not the sword arm—
And that 's enough. I am thirsty: would I had
A helm of water!

Cæs.
That's a liquid now
In requisition, but by no means easiest
To come at.

Arn.
And my thirst increases;—but
I'll find a way to quench it.

Cæs.
Or be quenched
Thyself.

Arn.
[Cæsar binds on the scarf.

Cæs.
Your old philosophers
Beheld mankind, as mere spectators of
The Olympic games. When I behold a prize
Worth wrestling for, I may be found a Milo.

Arn.
Aye, 'gainst an oak.

Cæs.
A forest, when it suits me:
I combat with a mass, or not at all.
Meantime, pursue thy sport as I do mine;
Which is just now to gaze, since all these labourers
Will reap my harvest gratis.

Arn.
Thou art still
A fiend!

Cæs.
And thou—a man.

Arn.
Why, such I fain would show me.

Cæs.
True—as men are.

Arn.
And what is that?

Cæs.
Thou feelest and thou see'st.

[Exit Arnold, joining in the combat which still continues between detached parties. The scene closes.

Scene III.

—St. Peter's—The interior of the Church—The Pope at the Altar—Priests, etc., crowding in confusion, and Citizens flying for refuge, pursued by Soldiery.
Enter Cæsar.
A Spanish Soldier.
Down with them, comrades, seize upon those lamps!
Cleave yon bald-pated shaveling to the chine!
His rosary 's of gold!

Lutheran Soldier.
Revenge! revenge!
Plunder hereafter, but for vengeance now—
Yonder stands Anti-Christ!

Cæs.
(interposing).
How now, schismatic?
What wouldst thou?

Luth. Sold.
In the holy name of Christ,
Destroy proud Anti-Christ. I am a Christian.

Cæs.
Yea, a disciple that would make the founder
Of your belief renounce it, could he see
Such proselytes. Best stint thyself to plunder.

Luth. Sold.
I say he is the Devil.

Cæs.
Hush! keep that secret,
Lest he should recognise you for his own.

Luth. Sold.
Why would you save him? I repeat he is
The Devil, or the Devil's vicar upon earth.

Cæs.
And that's the reason: would you make a quarrel
With your best friends? You had far best be quiet;
His hour is not yet come.

Luth. Sold.
That shall be seen!

[The Lutheran Soldier rushes forward: a shot strikes him from one of the Pope's Guards, and he falls at the foot of the Altar.
Cæs.
(to the Lutheran).
I told you so.

Luth. Sold.
And will you not avenge me?

Cæs.
Not I! You know that “Vengeance is the Lord's:”
You see he loves no interlopers.

Luth. Sold.
(dying).
Oh!
Had I but slain him, I had gone on high,
Crowned with eternal glory! Heaven, forgive
My feebleness of arm that reached him not,
And take thy servant to thy mercy. 'Tis
A glorious triumph still; proud Babylon 's
No more; the Harlot of the Seven Hills
Hath changed her scarlet raiment for sackcloth
And ashes!

[The Lutheran dies.
Cæs.
Yes, thine own amidst the rest.
Well done, old Babel!

[The Guards defend themselves desperately, while the Pontiff escapes, by a private passage, to the Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo.
Cæs.
Ha! right nobly battled!
Now, priest! now, soldier! the two great professions,
Together by the ears and hearts! I have not
Seen a more comic pantomime since Titus
Took Jewry. But the Romans had the best then;
Now they must take their turn.

Soldiers.
He hath escaped!
Follow!

Another Sold.
They have barred the narrow passage up,
And it is clogged with dead even to the door.

Cæs.
[To the Spanish Soldiery.

Soldiers.
By holy Peter!
He speaks the truth; the heretics will bear
The best away.

Cæs.
And that were shame! Go to!
Assist in their conversion.

[The Soldiers disperse; many quit the Church, others enter.
Cæs.
They are gone,
And others come: so flows the wave on wave
Of what these creatures call Eternity,
Deeming themselves the breakers of the Ocean,
While they are but its bubbles, ignorant
That foam is their foundation. So, another!

Enter Olimpia, flying from the pursuit—She springs upon the Altar.
Sold.
She's mine!

Another Sold.
(opposing the former).
You lie, I tracked her first: and were she
The Pope's niece, I'll not yield her.

[They fight.
3d Sold.
(advancing towards Olimpia).
You may settle
Your claims; I'll make mine good.

Olimp.
Infernal slave!
You touch me not alive.

3d Sold.
Alive or dead!

Olimp.
(embracing a massive crucifix).
Respect your God!

3d Sold.
Yes, when he shines in gold.
Girl, you but grasp your dowry.

[As he advances, Olimpia, with a strong and sudden effort, casts down the crucifix; it strikes the Soldier, who falls.
3d Sold.
Oh, great God!

Olimp.
Ah! now you recognise him.

3d Sold.
My brain 's crushed!
Comrades, help, ho! All's darkness!

[He dies.
Other Soldiers
(coming up).
Slay her, although she had a thousand lives:
She hath killed our comrade.

Olimp.
Welcome such a death!
You have no life to give, which the worst slave
Would take. Great God! through thy redeeming Son,
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as
I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee!

Enter Arnold.
Arn.
What do I see? Accurséd jackals!
Forbear!

Cæs.
(aside and laughing).
Ha! ha! here 's equity! The dogs
Have as much right as he. But to the issue!

Soldiers.
Count, she hath slain our comrade.

Arn.
With what weapon?

Sold.
The cross, beneath which he is crushed; behold him
Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it
Upon his head.

Arn.
Even so: there is a woman
Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such,
Ye would have honoured her. But get ye hence,
And thank your meanness, other God you have none,
For your existence. Had you touched a hair
Of those dishevelled locks, I would have thinned
Your ranks more than the enemy. Away!
Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves,
But not even these till he permits.

A Sold.
(murmuring).
The lion
Might conquer for himself then.

Arn.
(cuts him down).
Mutineer!
Rebel in hell—you shall obey on earth!

[The Soldiers assault Arnold.
Arn.
Come on! I'm glad on't! I will show you, slaves,
How you should be commanded, and who led you
First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
Until I waved my banners from its height,
As you are bold within it.

[Arnold mows down the foremost; the rest throw down their arms.
Soldiers.
Mercy! mercy!

Arn.
Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you who
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements?

Soldiers.
We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive
A moment's error in the heat of conquest—
The conquest which you led to.

Arn.
Get you hence!
Hence to your quarters! you will find them fixed
In the Colonna palace.

Olimp.
(aside).
In my father's
House!

Arn.
(to the Soldiers).
Leave your arms; ye have no further need
Of such: the city 's rendered. And mark well
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.

Soldiers
(deposing their arms and departing).
We obey!

Arn.
(to Olimpia).
Lady, you are safe.

Olimp.
I should be so,
Had I a knife even; but it matters not—
Death hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,
Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
Upon destruction, shall my head be dashed,
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man!

Arn.
I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
Thine own, although I have not injured thee.

Olimp.
No! Thou hast only sacked my native land,—
No injury!—and made my father's house
A den of thieves! No injury!—this temple—
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
To be—but that shall never be!

[She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds her robe round her, and prepares to dash herself down on the side of the Altar opposite to that where Arnold stands.
Arn.
Hold! hold!
I swear.

Olimp.
Spare thine already forfeit soul
A perjury for which even Hell would loathe thee.
I know thee.

Arn.
No, thou know'st me not; I am not
Of these men, though—

Olimp.
I judge thee by thy mates;
It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me,
And here, upon the marble of this temple,
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
I offer him a blood less holy
But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
A redeeméd infant) than the holy water
The saints have sanctified!

[Olimpia waves her hand to Arnold with disdain, and dashes herself on the pavement from the Altar.
Arn.
Eternal God!
I feel thee now! Help! help! she's gone.

Cæs.
(approaches).
I am here.

Arn.
Thou! but oh, save her!

Cæs.
(assisting him to raise Olimpia).
She hath done it well!
The leap was serious.

Arn.
Oh! she is lifeless!

Cæs.
If
She be so, I have nought to do with that:
The resurrection is beyond me.

Arn.
Slave!

Cæs.
Aye, slave or master, 'tis all one: methinks
Good words, however, are as well at times.

Arn.
Words!—Canst thou aid her?

Cæs.
I will try. A sprinkling
Of that same holy water may be useful.

[He brings some in his helmet from the font.
Arn.
'Tis mixed with blood.

Cæs.
There is no cleaner now
In Rome.

Arn.
How pale! how beautiful! how lifeless!
Alive or dead, thou Essence of all Beauty,
I love but thee!

Cæs.
Even so Achilles loved
Penthesilea; with his form it seems
You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one.

Arn.
She breathes! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last
Faint flutter Life disputes with Death.

Cæs.
She breathes.

Arn.
Thou say'st it? Then 'tis truth.

Cæs.
You do me right—
The Devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed:
He hath an ignorant audience.

Arn.
(without attending to him).
Yes! her heart beats.
Alas! that the first beat of the only heart
I ever wished to beat with mine should vibrate
To an assassin's pulse.

Cæs.
A sage reflection,
But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her?
I say she lives.

Arn.
And will she live?

Cæs.
As much
As dust can.

Arn.
Then she is dead!

Cæs.
Bah! bah! You are so,
And do not know it. She will come to life—
Such as you think so, such as you now are;
But we must work by human means.

Arn.
We will
Convey her unto the Colonna palace,
Where I have pitched my banner.

Cæs.
Come then! raise her up!

Arn.
Softly!

Cæs.
As softly as they bear the dead,
Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.

Arn.
But doth she live indeed?

Cæs.
Nay, never fear!
But, if you rue it after, blame not me.

Arn.
Let her but live!

Cæs.
The Spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office:—'tis not oft
I am employed in such; but you perceive
How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.

Arn.
Thou!

Cæs.
I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.

Arn.
Rival!

Cæs.
I could be one right formidable;
But since I slew the seven husbands of
Tobias' future bride (and after all
Was smoked out by some incense), I have laid
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
Of gaining, or—what is more difficult—
Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
The rub! at least to mortals.

Arn.
Prithee, peace!
Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!

Cæs.
Like stars, no doubt; for that 's a metaphor
For Lucifer and Venus.

Arn.
To the palace
Colonna, as I told you!

Cæs.
Oh! I know
My way through Rome.

Arn.
Now onward, onward! Gently!

[Exeunt, bearing Olimpia. The scene closes.

III. PART III.

Scene I.

—A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates.
Chorus.

Enter Cæsar.
Cæs.
(singing).
The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,
The steed bites the bridle,
The casque 's on the wall.
There 's rest for the rover;
But his armour is rusty,
And the veteran grows crusty,
As he yawns in the hall.
He drinks—but what 's drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.

Chorus.
But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar 's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly
To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble
With birds from their nest.

Cæs.
Oh! shadow of Glory!
Dim image of War!
But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,
Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder
And quake for their race.
When the lion was young,
In the pride of his might,
Then 'twas sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;
To go forth, with a pine
For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine
At the foaming behemoth;
While man was in stature
As towers in our time,
The first born of Nature,
And, like her, sublime!

Chorus.
But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, and we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!

[Exeunt the Peasantry, singing.

III. FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED.

Chorus.
When the merry bells are ringing,
And the peasant girls are singing,
And the early flowers are flinging
Their odours in the air;
And the honey bee is clinging
To the buds; and birds are winging
Their way, pair by pair:
Then the earth looks free from trouble
With the brightness of a bubble:
Though I did not make it,
I could breathe on and break it;
But too much I scorn it,
Or else I would mourn it,
To see despots and slaves
Playing o'er their own graves.

Enter Count Arnold.
Arnold.
You are merry, Sir—what? singing too?

Cæsar.
It is
The land of Song—and Canticles you know
Were once my avocation.

Arn.
Nothing moves you;
You scoff even at your own calamity—
And such calamity! how wert thou fallen
Son of the Morning! and yet Lucifer
Can smile.

Cæs.
His shape can—would you have me weep,
In the fair form I wear, to please you?

Arn.
Ah!

Cæs.
You are grave—what have you on your spirit!

Arn.
Nothing.

Cæs.
How mortals lie by instinct! If you ask
A disappointed courtier—What's the matter?
“Nothing”—an outshone Beauty what has made
Her smooth brow crisp—“Oh, Nothing!”—a young heir
When his Sire has recovered from the Gout,
What ails him? “Nothing!” or a Monarch who
Has heard the truth, and looks imperial on it—
What clouds his royal aspect? “Nothing,” “Nothing!”
Nothing—eternal nothing—of these nothings
All are a lie—for all to them are much!
And they themselves alone the real “Nothings.”
Your present Nothing, too, is something to you—
What is it?

Arn.
Know you not?

Cæs.
I only know
What I desire to know! and will not waste
Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with it!
If you seek aid from me—or else be silent.
And eat your thoughts—till they breed snakes within you.

Arn.
Olimpia!

Cæs.
I thought as much—go on.

Arn.
I thought she had loved me.

Cæs.
Blessings on your Creed!
What a good Christian you were found to be!
But what cold Sceptic hath appalled your faith
And transubstantiated to crumbs again
The body of your Credence?

Arn.
No one—but—
Each day—each hour—each minute shows me more
And more she loves me not—

Cæs.
Doth she rebel?

Arn.
No, she is calm, and meek, and silent with me,
And coldly dutiful, and proudly patient—
Endures my Love—not meets it.

Cæs.
That seems strange.
You are beautiful and brave! the first is much
For passion—and the rest for Vanity.

Arn.
I saved her life, too; and her Father's life,
And Father's house from ashes.

Cæs.
These are nothing.
You seek for Gratitude—the Philosopher's stone.

Arn.
And find it not.

Cæs.
You cannot find what is not.
But found would it content you? would you owe
To thankfulness what you desire from Passion?
No! No! you would be loved—what you call loved—
Self-loved—loved for yourself—for neither health,
Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor rank, nor beauty—
For these you may be stript of—but beloved
As an abstraction—for—you know not what!
These are the wishes of a moderate lover—
And so you love.

Arn.
Ah! could I be beloved,
Would I ask wherefore?

Cæs.
Yes! and not believe
The answer—You are jealous.

Arn.
And of whom?

Cæs.
It may be of yourself, for Jealousy
Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb
Is mighty—as you mortals deem—and to
Your little Universe seems universal;
But, great as He appears, and is to you,
The smallest cloud—the slightest vapour of
Your humid earth enables you to look
Upon a Sky which you revile as dull;
Though your eyes dare not gaze on it when cloudless.
Nothing can blind a mortal like to light.
Now Love in you is as the Sun—a thing
Beyond you—and your Jealousy 's of Earth—
A cloud of your own raising.

Arn.
Not so always!
There is a cause at times.

Cæs.
Oh, yes! when atoms jostle,
The System is in peril. But I speak
Of things you know not. Well, to earth again!
This precious thing of dust—this bright Olimpia—
This marvellous Virgin, is a marble maid—
An Idol, but a cold one to your heat
Promethean, and unkindled by your torch.

Arn.
Slave!

Cæs.
In the victor's Chariot, when Rome triumphed,
There was a Slave of yore to tell him truth!
You are a Conqueror—command your Slave.

Arn.
Teach me the way to win the woman's love.

Cæs.
Leave her.

Arn.
Where that the path—I'd not pursue it.

Cæs.
No doubt! for if you did, the remedy
Would be for a disease already cured.

Arn.
All wretched as I am, I would not quit
My unrequited love, for all that 's happy.

Cæs.
You have possessed the woman—still possess.
What need you more?

Arn.
To be myself possessed—
To be her heart as she is mine.

THE AGE OF BRONZE;

OR, CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.

I.

The “good old times”—all times when old are good—
Are gone; the present might be if they would;
Great things have been, and are, and greater still
Want little of mere mortals but their will:
A wider space, a greener field, is given
To those who play their “tricks before high heaven.”
I know not if the angels weep, but men
Have wept enough—for what?—to weep again!

II.

All is exploded—be it good or bad.
Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deemed him such.
We—we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face—
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flowed all free,
As the deep billows of the Ægean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they—the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,
Which oversweeps the World. The theme is old
Of “Dust to Dust,” but half its tale untold:
Time tempers not its terrors—still the worm
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,
Varied above, but still alike below;
The urn may shine—the ashes will not glow—
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea
O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;
Though Alexander's urn a show be grown
On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown—
How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!
He wept for worlds to conquer—half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,
And desolation; while his native Greece
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.
He “wept for worlds to conquer!” he who ne'er
Conceived the Globe, he panted not to spare!
With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,
Which holds his urn—and never knew his throne.

III.

But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late,
Chained to the chariot of the Chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, “the champion and the child”
Of all that 's great or little—wise or wild;
Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones;
Whose table Earth—whose dice were human bones?
Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle,
And, as thy nature urges—weep or smile.
Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines;
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.
Is this the Man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's statement, and an earl's harangues!
A bust delayed,—a book refused, can shake
The sleep of Him who kept the world awake.
Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,
Now slave of all could tease or irritate—
The paltry gaoler and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;
How low, how little was this middle state,
Between a prison and a palace, where
How few could feel for what he had to bear!
Vain his complaint,—My Lord presents his bill,
His food and wine were doled out duly still;
Vain was his sickness, never was a clime
So free from homicide—to doubt 's crime;
And the stiff surgeon, who maintained his cause,
Hath lost his place, and gained the world's applause.
But smile—though all the pangs of brain and heart
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art;
Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face
Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne'er embrace,
None stand by his low bed—though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind:
Smile—for the fettered Eagle breaks his chain,
And higher Worlds than this are his again.

IV.

How, if that soaring Spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,
How must he smile, on looking down, to see
The little that he was and sought to be!
What though his Name a wider empire found
Than his Ambition, though with scarce a bound;
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse,
He tasted Empire's blessings and its curse;
Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape
From chains, would gladly be their Tyrant's ape;
How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,
The proudest Sea-mark that o'ertops the wave!
What though his gaoler, duteous to the last,
Scarce deemed the coffin's lead could keep him fast,
Refusing one poor line along the lid,
To date the birth and death of all it hid;
That name shall hallow the ignoble shore,
A talisman to all save him who bore:
The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast
Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast;
When Victory's Gallic column shall but rise,
Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's skies,
The rocky Isle that holds or held his dust,
Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero's bust,
And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies
Do more than niggard Envy still denies.
But what are these to him? Can Glory's lust
Touch the freed spirit or the fettered dust?
Small care hath he of what his tomb consists;
Nought if he sleeps—nor more if he exists:
Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile
On the rude cavern of the rocky isle,
As if his ashes found their latest home
In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic dome.
He wants not this; but France shall feel the want
Of this last consolation, though so scant:
Her Honour—Fame—and Faith demand his bones,
To rear above a Pyramid of thrones;
Or carried onward in the battle's van,
To form, like Guesclin's dust, her Talisman.
But be it as it is—the time may come
His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska's drum.

V.

VI.

But 'twill not be—the spark 's awakened—lo!
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives—and where? in that avenging clime
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew,
The infant world redeems her name of “New.”
'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh,
To kindle souls within degraded flesh,
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore
Where Greece was—No! she still is Greece once more.
One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the East, or helots of the West:
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurled,
The self-same standard streams o'er either world:
The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili chief abjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each cacique;
Debating despots, hemmed on either shore,
Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar;
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main:
But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye,
Break o'er th' Ægean, mindful of the day
Of Salamis!—there, there the waves arise,
Not to be lulled by tyrant victories.
Lone, lost, abandoned in their utmost need
By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,
The fostered feud encouraged to beguile,
The aid evaded, and the cold delay,
Prolonged but in the hope to make a prey;—
These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.
But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his masque of peace.
How should the Autocrat of bondage be
The king of serfs, and set the nations free?
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,
Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan;
Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate,—
Numbered by hordes, a human capital,
A live estate, existing but for thrall,
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward
For the first courtier in the Czar's regard;
While their immediate owner never tastes
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes:
Better succumb even to their own despair,
And drive the Camel—than purvey the Bear.

VII.

But not alone within the hoariest clime
Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time,
And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd
Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud,
The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain
Holds back the invader from her soil again.
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde
Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword;
Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth
Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both;
Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears
The warlike fathers of a thousand years.
That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the Moor
Sighs to remember on his dusky shore.
Long in the peasant's song or poet's page
Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage;
The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung
Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung.
But these are gone—their faith, their swords, their sway,
Yet left more anti-christian foes than they;
The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest,
The Inquisition, with her burning feast,
The Faith's red “Auto,” fed with human fuel,
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel,
Enjoying, with inexorable eye,
That fiery festival of Agony!
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both
By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth;
The long degenerate noble; the debased
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced,
But more degraded; the unpeopled realm;
The once proud navy which forgot the helm;
The once impervious phalanx disarrayed;
The idle forge that formed Toledo's blade;
The foreign wealth that flowed on every shore,
Save hers who earned it with the native's gore;
The very language which might vie with Rome's,
And once was known to nations like their homes,
Neglected or forgotten:—such was Spain;
But such she is not, nor shall be again.
These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel
The new Numantine soul of old Castile,
Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar;
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the cry—“Iago! and close Spain!”
Yes, close her with your arméd bosoms round,
And form the barrier which Napoleon found,—
The exterminating war, the desert plain,
The streets without a tenant, save the slain;
The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop
Of vulture-plumed Guerrillas, on the stoop
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall;
The Man nerved to a spirit, and the Maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade;
The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel;
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile;
The unerring rifle of the Catalan;
The Andalusian courser in the van;
The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid:—
Such have been, such shall be, such are. Advance,
And win—not Spain! but thine own freedom, France!

VIII.

But lo! a Congress! What! that hallowed name
Which freed the Atlantic! May we hope the same
For outworn Europe? With the sound arise,
Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes,
The prophets of young Freedom, summoned far
From climes of Washington and Bolivar;
Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes,
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas;
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed;
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake,
To bid us blush for these old chains, or break.
But who compose this Senate of the few
That should redeem the many? Who renew
This consecrated name, till now assigned
To councils held to benefit mankind?
Who now assemble at the holy call?
The blest Alliance, which says three are all!
An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape
Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape.
A pious Unity! in purpose one—
To melt three fools to a Napoleon.
Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these;
Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees,
And, quiet in their kennel or their shed,
Cared little, so that they were duly fed;
But these, more hungry, must have something more—
The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore.
Ah, how much happier were good Æsop's frogs
Than we! for ours are animated logs,
With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
And crushing nations with a stupid blow;
All dully anxious to leave little work
Unto the revolutionary stork.

IX.

Thrice blest Verona! since the holy three
With their imperial presence shine on thee!
Honoured by them, thy treacherous site forgets
The vaunted tomb of “all the Capulets!”
Thy Scaligers—for what was “Dog the Great,”
“Can Grande,” (which I venture to translate,)
To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too,
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new;
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate;
And Dante's exile sheltered by thy gate;
Thy good old man, whose world was all within
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in;
Would that the royal guests it girds about
Were so far like, as never to get out!
Aye, shout! inscribe! rear monuments of shame,
To tell Oppression that the world is tame!
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage,
The comedy is not upon the stage;
The show is rich in ribandry and stars,
Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy,
For thus much still thy fettered hands are free!

X.

Resplendent sight! Behold the coxcomb Czar,
The Autocrat of waltzes and of war!
As eager for a plaudit as a realm,
And just as fit for flirting as the helm;
A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit,
And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit;
Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw,
But hardened back whene'er the morning 's raw;
With no objection to true Liberty,
Except that it would make the nations free.
How well the imperial dandy prates of peace!
How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece!
How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet,
Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet!
How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine,
With all her pleasant Pulks, to lecture Spain!
How royally show off in proud Madrid
His goodly person, from the South long hid!
A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows,
By having Muscovites for friends or foes.
Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son!
La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on;
And that which Scythia was to him of yore
Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore.
Yet think upon, thou somewhat agéd youth,
Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth;
Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine,
Many an old woman, but not Catherine.
Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles—
The Bear may rush into the Lion's toils.
Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields;
Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields?
Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords
To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir hordes,
Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout,
Than follow headlong in the fatal route,
To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure
With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure:
Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe:
Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago;
And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey?
Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey.
I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun
Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun;
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander
Rather a worm than such an Alexander!
Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free;
His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopè:
Still will he hold his lantern up to scan
The face of monarchs for an “honest man.”

XI.

And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land
Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band
Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers
And tribune, which each orator first clambers
Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found,
Hears “the lie” echo for his answer round?
Our British Commons sometimes deign to “hear!”
A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear;
Even Constant, their sole master of debate,
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate.
But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather
Combat than listen, were it to their father.
What is the simple standing of a shot,
To listening long, and interrupting not?
Though this was not the method of old Rome,
When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome,
Demosthenes has sanctioned the transaction,
In saying eloquence meant “Action, action!”

XII.

But where 's the monarch? hath he dined? or yet
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt?
Have revolutionary patés risen,
And turned the royal entrails to a prison?
Have discontented movements stirred the troops?
Or have no movements followed traitorous soups?
Have Carbonaro cooks not carbonadoed
Each course enough? or doctors dire dissuaded
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks
I read all France's treason in her cooks!
Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou say,
Desirable to be the “Desiré?”
Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green abode,
Apician table, and Horatian ode,
To rule a people who will not be ruled,
And love much rather to be scourged than schooled?
Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste
For thrones; the table sees thee better placed:
A mild Epicurean, formed, at best,
To be a kind host and as good a guest,
To talk of Letters, and to know by heart
One half the Poet's, all the Gourmand's art;
A scholar always, now and then a wit,
And gentle when Digestion may permit;—
But not to govern lands enslaved or free;
The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.

XIII.

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase
From a bold Briton in her wonted praise?
“Arts—arms—and George—and glory—and the Isles,
And happy Britain, wealth, and Freedom's smiles,
White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof,
Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof,
Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curled,
That nose, the hook where he suspends the world!
And Waterloo, and trade, and—(hush! not yet
A syllable of imposts or of debt)—
And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh,
Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other day—
And, ‘pilots who have weathered every storm’—
(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name Reform).”
These are the themes thus sung so oft before,
Methinks we need not sing them any more;
Found in so many volumes far and near,
There 's no occasion you should find them here.
Yet something may remain perchance to chime
With reason, and, what 's stranger still, with rhyme.
Even this thy genius, Canning! may permit,
Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a wit,
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame
To unleavened prose thine own poetic flame;
Our last, our best, our only orator,
Even I can praise thee—Tories do no more:
Nay, not so much;—they hate thee, man, because
Thy Spirit less upholds them than it awes.
The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo,
And where he leads the duteous pack will follow;
But not for love mistake their yelling cry;
Their yelp for game is not an eulogy;
Less faithful far than the four-footed pack,
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.
Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure;
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last
To stumble, kick—and now and then stick fast
With his great Self and Rider in the mud;
But what of that? the animal shows blood.

XIV.

Alas, the Country! how shall tongue or pen
Bewail her now uncountry gentlemen?
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,
The first to make a malady of peace.
For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt—and vote—and raise the price of corn?
But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,
Kings—Conquerors—and markets most of all.
And must ye fall with every ear of grain?
Why would you trouble Buonaparté's reign?
He was your great Triptolemus; his vices
Destroyed but realms, and still maintained your prices;
He amplified to every lord's content
The grand agrarian alchymy, high rent.
Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars,
And lower wheat to such desponding quarters?
Why did you chain him on yon Isle so lone?
The man was worth much more upon his throne.
True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt,
But what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt;
But bread was high, the farmer paid his way,
And acres told upon the appointed day.
But where is now the goodly audit ale?
The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?
The farm which never yet was left on hand?
The marsh reclaimed to most improving land?
The impatient hope of the expiring lease?
The doubling rental? What an evil 's peace!
In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,
In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;
The Landed Interest—(you may understand
The phrase much better leaving out the land)—
The land self-interest groans from shore to shore,
For fear that plenty should attain the poor.
Up, up again, ye rents, exalt your notes,
Or else the Ministry will lose their votes,
And patriotism, so delicately nice,
Her loaves will lower to the market price;
For ah! “the loaves and fishes,” once so high,
Are gone—their oven closed, their ocean dry,
And nought remains of all the millions spent,
Excepting to grow moderate and content.
They who are not so, had their turn—and turn
About still flows from Fortune's equal urn;
Now let their virtue be its own reward,
And share the blessings which themselves prepared.
See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,
Farmers of war, dictators of the farm;
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands,
Their fields manured by gore of other lands;
Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent
Their brethren out to battle—why? for rent!
Year after year they voted cent. per cent.
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?—for rent!
They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant
To die for England—why then live?—for rent!
The peace has made one general malcontent
Of these high-market patriots; war was rent!
Their love of country, millions all mis-spent,
How reconcile? by reconciling rent!
And will they not repay the treasures lent?
No: down with everything, and up with rent!
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent,
Being, end, aim, religion—rent—rent—rent!
Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess;
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less;
Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy demands
Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands.
Such, landlords! was your appetite for war,
And gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar!
What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er cash?
And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash?
So rent may rise, bid Bank and Nation fall,
And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital?
Lo, Mother Church, while all religion writhes,
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring—Tithes;
The Prelates go to—where the Saints have gone,
And proud pluralities subside to one;
Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark,
Tossed by the deluge in their common ark.
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends,
Another Babel soars—but Britain ends.
And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants,
And prop the hill of these agrarian ants.
“Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;”
Admire their patience through each sacrifice,
Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride,
The price of taxes and of homicide;
Admire their justice, which would fain deny
The debt of nations:—pray who made it high?

XV.

Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks,
The new Symplegades—the crushing Stocks,
Where Midas might again his wish behold
In real paper or imagined gold.
That magic palace of Alcina shows
More wealth than Britain ever had to lose,
Were all her atoms of unleavened ore,
And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore.
There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake
And the World trembles to bid brokers break.
How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines,
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines;
No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey,
Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money:
But let us not to own the truth refuse,
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?
Those parted with their teeth to good King John,
And now, ye kings, they kindly draw your own;
All states, all things, all sovereigns they control,
And waft a loan “from Indus to the pole.”
The banker—broker—baron—brethren, speed
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.
Nor these alone; Columbia feels no less
Fresh speculations follow each success;
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain
Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain.
Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march;
'Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch.
Two Jews, a chosen people, can command
In every realm their Scripture-promised land:—
Two Jews, keep down the Romans, and uphold
The accurséd Hun, more brutal than of old:
Two Jews,—but not Samaritans—direct
The world, with all the spirit of their sect.
What is the happiness of earth to them?
A congress forms their “New Jerusalem,”
Where baronies and orders both invite—
Oh, holy Abraham! dost thou see the sight?
Thy followers mingling with these royal swine,
Who spit not “on their Jewish gaberdine,”
But honour them as portion of the show—
(Where now, oh Pope! is thy forsaken toe?
Could it not favour Judah with some kicks?
Or has it ceased to “kick against the pricks?”)
On Shylock's shore behold them stand afresh,
To cut from Nation's hearts their “pound of flesh.”

XVI.

Strange sight this Congress! destined to unite
All that 's incongruous, all that 's opposite.
I speak not of the Sovereigns—they're alike,
A common coin as ever mint could strike;
But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings,
Have more of motley than their heavy kings.
Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine,
While Europe wonders at the vast design:
There Metternich, power's foremost parasite,
Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight;
There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs;
And subtle Greeks intrigue for stupid Tartars;
There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,
Turns a diplomatist of great éclat,
To furnish articles for the “Débats;”
Of war so certain—yet not quite so sure
As his dismissal in the “Moniteur.”
Alas! how could his cabinet thus err!
Can Peace be worth an ultra-minister?
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again,
“Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.”

XVII.

Enough of this—a sight more mournful woos
The averted eye of the reluctant Muse.
The Imperial daughter, the Imperial bride,
The imperial Victim—sacrifice to pride;
The mother of the Hero's hope, the boy,
The young Astyanax of Modern Troy;
The still pale shadow of the loftiest Queen
That Earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen;
She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour,
The theme of pity, and the wreck of power.
Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare
A daughter? What did France's widow there?
Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave,
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave.
But, no,—she still must hold a petty reign,
Flanked by her formidable chamberlain;
The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes
Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.
What though she share no more, and shared in vain,
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne,
Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas!
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese,
Where Parma views the traveller resort,
To note the trappings of her mimic court.
But she appears! Verona sees her shorn
Of all her beams—while nations gaze and mourn—
Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time
To chill in their inhospitable clime;
(If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;—
But no,—their embers soon will burst the mould;)
She comes!—the Andromache (but not Racine's,
Nor Homer's,)—Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm she leans!
Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo,
Which cut her lord's half-shattered sceptre through,
Is offered and accepted? Could a slave
Do more? or less?—and he in his new grave!
Her eye—her cheek—betray no inward strife,
And the Ex-Empress grows as Ex a wife!
So much for human ties in royal breasts!
Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?

XVIII.

THE ISLAND;

OR, CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES.

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flashed from off her prow
In furrows formed by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;
The stars from broader beams began to creep,
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;
The sail resumed its lately shadowed white,
And the wind fluttered with a freshening flight;
The purpling Ocean owns the coming Sun,
But ere he break—a deed is to be done.

II.

The gallant Chief within his cabin slept,
Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore,
Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er;
His name was added to the glorious roll
Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.
The worst was over, and the rest seemed sure,
And why should not his slumber be secure?
Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet;
Young hearts, which languished for some sunny isle,
Where summer years and summer women smile;
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed,
And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave—
The gushing fruits that nature gave untilled;
The wood without a path—but where they willed;
The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty poured
Her horn; the equal land without a lord;
The wish—which ages have not yet subdued
In man—to have no master save his mood;
The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold,
The glowing sun and produce all its gold;
The Freedom which can call each grot a home;
The general garden, where all steps may roam,
Where Nature owns a nation as her child,
Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;
Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know,
Their unexploring navy, the canoe;
Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;
Their strangest sight, an European face:—
Such was the country which these strangers yearned
To see again—a sight they dearly earned.

III.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate!
Awake! awake!—Alas! it is too late!
Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast;
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;
Dragged o'er the deck, no more at thy command
The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand;
That savage Spirit, which would lull by wrath
Its desperate escape from Duty's path,
Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes
Of those who fear the Chief they sacrifice:
For ne'er can Man his conscience all assuage,
Unless he drain the wine of Passion—Rage.

IV.

In vain, not silenced by the eye of Death,
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath:—
They come not; they are few, and, overawed,
Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud.
In vain thou dost demand the cause: a curse
Is all the answer, with the threat of worse.
Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade,
Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid.
The levelled muskets circle round thy breast
In hands as steeled to do the deadly rest.
Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaiming—“Fire!”
But they who pitied not could yet admire;
Some lurking remnant of their former awe
Restrained them longer than their broken law;
They would not dip their souls at once in blood,
But left thee to the mercies of the flood.

V.

“Hoist out the boat!” was now the leader's cry;
And who dare answer “No!” to Mutiny,
In the first dawning of the drunken hour,
The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power?
The boat is lowered with all the haste of hate,
With its slight plank between thee and thy fate;
Her only cargo such a scant supply
As promises the death their hands deny;
And just enough of water and of bread
To keep, some days, the dying from the dead:
Some cordage, canvass, sails, and lines, and twine,
But treasures all to hermits of the brine,
Were added after, to the earnest prayer
Of those who saw no hope, save sea and air;
And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole—
The feeling compass—Navigation's soul.

VI.

And now the self-elected Chief finds time
To stun the first sensation of his crime,
And raise it in his followers—“Ho! the bowl!”
Lest passion should return to reason's shoal.
“Brandy for heroes!” Burke could once exclaim—
No doubt a liquid path to Epic fame;
And such the new-born heroes found it here,
And drained the draught with an applauding cheer.
“Huzza! for Otaheite!” was the cry.
How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny!
The gentle island, and the genial soil,
The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil,
The courteous manners but from nature caught,
The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought;
Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven
Before the mast by every wind of heaven?
And now, even now prepared with others' woes
To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, repose?
Alas! such is our nature! all but aim
At the same end by pathways not the same;
Our means—our birth—our nation, and our name,
Our fortune—temper—even our outward frame,
Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay
Than aught we know beyond our little day.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the Oracle of God.

VII.

The launch is crowded with the faithful few
Who wait their Chief, a melancholy crew:
But some remained reluctant on the deck
Of that proud vessel—now a moral wreck—
And viewed their Captain's fate with piteous eyes;
While others scoffed his augured miseries,
Sneered at the prospect of his pigmy sail,
And the slight bark so laden and so frail.
The tender nautilus, who steers his prow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-winged Tornados sweep
The surge, is safe—his port is in the deep—
And triumphs o'er the armadas of Mankind,
Which shake the World, yet crumble in the wind.

VIII.

When all was now prepared, the vessel clear
Which hailed her master in the mutineer,
A seaman, less obdurate than his mates,
Showed the vain pity which but irritates;
Watched his late Chieftain with exploring eye,
And told, in signs, repentant sympathy;
Held the moist shaddock to his parchéd mouth,
Which felt Exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth.
But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn,
Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's dawn.
Then forward stepped the bold and froward boy
His Chief had cherished only to destroy,
And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath,
Exclaimed, “Depart at once! delay is death!”
Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all:
In that last moment could a word recall
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done,
And what he hid from many showed to one:
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where
Was now his grateful sense of former care?
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire,
And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher?
His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell,
“'Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!”
No more he said; but urging to the bark
His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark;
These the sole accents from his tongue that fell,
But volumes lurked below his fierce farewell.

IX.

X.

We leave them to their fate, but not unknown
Nor unredressed. Revenge may have her own:
Roused Discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured Navies urge their broken laws.
Pursue we on his track the mutineer,
Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear.
Wide o'er the wave—away! away! away!
Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay;
Once more the happy shores without a law
Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw;
Nature, and Nature's goddess—Woman—woos
To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse;
Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:—
The goldless Age, where Gold disturbs no dreams,
Inhabits or inhabited the shore,
Till Europe taught them better than before;
Bestowed her customs, and amended theirs,
But left her vices also to their heirs.
Away with this! behold them as they were,
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.
“Huzza! for Otaheite!” was the cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by.
The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease.
Thus Argo ploughed the Euxine's virgin foam,
But those she wafted still looked back to home;
These spurn their country with their rebel bark,
And fly her as the raven fled the Ark;
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,
And tame their fiery spirits down to Love.

CANTO THE SECOND.

CANTO THE THIRD.

CANTO THE FOURTH.