University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

(Rosita's chamber.)
Rosita.
What sounds are those, which, blending with my dreams,
Still charm, as echo, my awakened ear?

Maria.
I think you ought to know.

Rosita.
Perhaps I do,
In the small corner where we keep sweet thoughts.

Maria.
Hark! now the tinkling has begun again;
And if you listen, in another minute
He will repeat his song.——There, it begins.

Rosita.
Open the lattice, that the words may reach me.

Rosita.
Give me that yellow briar-rose from the vase,
That I may throw it.

Maria.
We have a saying in my native province
That when a woman bears a flower's name,
And throws a man that flower from a window,
She throws her own self with it.

Rosita (aside).
He has caught it!
If souls can nestle in a flower's petals,
Mine has been thrown in that one, and he has it.

Maria.
Your birthday, madam, opens well.

Rosita.
My birthday?
Ay, so it is. And I had quite forgotten.
Indeed, indeed, I would that it were not;
My heart is over heavy for a birthday.

Maria.
What, in despite of singer and of song?

Rosita.
Alas! because of singer and of song.
Juan de Alvareda is the son
Of our worst enemy, of one whose name
Few care to whisper in my father's presence;
What hope of ever getting his consent?
If he were caught—

Maria.
Your father is too busy
With his own schemes to interfere with yours.

Rosita.
My father's schemes? Ay, that is what is casting
The ugly cloud, and darkening my birthday.
Of late he has some project in his mind
Which bodes us little good; and every day
He drops some hint that fills my heart with fear!
He now has always round him, as thou knowest,
Adventurers and seekers from the Indies,
Whose sight I cannot bear: one above all,
His favourite, Agrippa, seems to throw
An evil shadow on the sunny path,
I scarce know why; perhaps it is the way
In which he stares at me whene'er we meet.

Maria.
I like the man as little as yourself,
Or any of the westward-sailing knaves.
Which dress will you put on upon your birthday,
The silver cloth, with stomacher of seed-pearl,
Or puce with gold pomegranates?

Rosita.
Which thou wilt:
It matters little in what silk or satin
I clothe my apprehensions: for myself,
I fain would wear my plain familiar frock
Of every day. But hark, what noise is that?
What women's voices sound beneath the window?

Maria.
It is a chorus of the reapers, madam;
A band of girls and women of the village
Who bring a wreath of cornflow'rs for your birthday,
As large as any cart-wheel; only look,
What motley streamers bind it!

Rosita.
Go thou down,
And take the harvest wreath, and give them largess. [Exit Maria.

Their gift is very welcome. Was it not
Amid the ruddy ripeness of the corn
That he and I first met, that day of days?
Would I were one of them, and he a peasant,
That with my shining sickle I might go,
And bathe at sunset in the sea of grain,
Free, without fear, and wait the great slow wave
Which evening sets in motion through the wheat—
The signal of his coming. Oh, how sweet
Would be the safety of a cottage hearth,
However humble, for the years to come,
Instead of this sad future of vague fear!
How sweet to meet in open, fearless love,
And not, as now, with danger and intrigue,
When every meeting is perhaps a parting—
A parting, and for ever! Though my brow
Would be less white than now, and the blue veins
Be tanned away upon my sunburnt arm,
Both Juan and the future would be mine.
But hush, my thoughts! I hear my father's step
Approaching slowly through the gallery.

(Enter Ponce de Leon.)
Ponce de Leon.
Come, let thy father kiss thy sweet young face,
The fairest thing on which his eyes can look,
Until they rest upon the radiant brow
Of youth that has no end. See here, Rosita;
I bring thee something dainty for thy birthday—
A necklace made of unfamiliar beads,
In far Hispaniola wrought by Indians,
Each bead unlike the rest. What! not content?
I thought the gift would make thee dance for joy.

Rosita.
I would they came from any other place.

Ponce de Leon.
Thou art a silly and fantastic child;
But I can well afford to miss thy thanks
For this small gew-gaw made by Indian cunning:
Have I not in reserve the gift of gifts,
The dazzling, potent, and ineffable drops
That shall preserve the sparkle of thine eye,
The dimple on thy cheek for evermore?
That which the daughters of magnificent kings
In vain have yearned for, shall it not be thine?
Thine, and for ever?
(Aside)
The unconscious child!
I see an omen in her very beauty:
If God hath given her such eyes as hers
And chiselled features of such rare perfection,
It is because they are marked out by Heaven
To last for ever and have no decay;
Because she shall be dowered with the glory
Of sharing my first draught.

Rosita.
I have no wish
For an eternal youth, an endless beauty;
My mother had it not, so why should I?
I wish to share the common lot of mortals;
I wish to be, when comes the natural time,
A little silver-haired great-grandmother,
All shrunk and bent, with little twinkling eyes,
Who sits and spins beside the blazing hearth,
And tells the children fairy-tales all day.

Ponce de Leon.
Oh, hideous blasphemy and monstrous vision!
Oh, most unnatural wish! But, thanks to Heaven,
Thy youth shall be preserved upon thy cheek
In all its rosiness and sunny charm,
Despite thyself. And now, Rosita, listen:
I brought thee this rare string of Indian beads,
That it might coax thy soul to greet with pleasure
A startling piece of news. I have resolved
To take thee to the Indies of the West.

Rosita.
Merciful Virgin! so my fear was true.

Ponce de Leon.
I have resolved to sell these lands and walls,
And stake my fortune on a venturous sail
Beyond Hispaniola.

Rosita.
Sell these walls!
Sell these broad, fertile lands! Your very fathers,
Dead in their graves, will shudder and turn round.

Ponce de Leon.
Poor buried fools! If they had had the wit
To do as I do, they would not to-day
Be dead and mouldering bones, but living men,
Quick with the breath of youth.

Rosita.
Sell these broad acres,
And hand them to the stranger; leave each thing
That is familiar and most dear to see!
You cannot mean it, nor can I believe it;
Oh, can you look on these ancestral portraits,
And harbour such a thought before their face?

Ponce de Leon.
Poor ghosts of paint and canvas, each of whom,
Had they not in their piteous dulness rooted
Their lives, like trees, to their inherited clods,
But sought the Fount of Youth, as their descendant,
Would now be flesh and blood; it is not they
Who shall arrest me in my life's great scheme,
Just as begins the sunrise of success.
And now no more discussion; I forbid it.
But what are those cracked voices that I hear
Rise from outside? What hideous, loathsome song
Of crazed decrepitude? Quick, shut the window!
It makes me sick, the cackling squalls are more
Than ears can bear.

Rosita.
It is the village elders,
Who come to wish me joy. [Exit Ponce de Leon.

Alas! alas!

Chorus of Village Elders.

[Re-enter Maria.
Maria.
Come, dry your tears; your father's mind may change.

Rosita.
Thou knowest him but little if thou thinkest
That he will turn upon the steps of purpose.
One drop of what he sails for to the Indies
Is dearer to his bosom than my life;
I felt it coming.

Maria.
Let me see the necklace
Of Indian beads.

Rosita.
Yes, take it from my neck;
Were every bead that runs beneath my finger
A pill of poison, full of silent peril,
It could not be more ominous of ill.

Maria.
Do you put credence in the Fount of Youth?

Rosita.
I know not if the Fount of Youth exists;
But well I know what does—the Fount of Sorrow;
And all who dangle on my father's pleasure
Sooner or later have to drink of that.