University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

An apartment in Varini's palace.
Enter Valeria and a female attendant.
Attend.
Will you not sleep, dear lady? you are weary,
And yet thus eager, quick, and silently,
Like one who listens for a midnight sign,
You wander up and down from room to room,
With that wide, sightless eye,—searching about
For what you know not. Will you not to bed?

Valer.

Attend.
I am not weary:
Believe me now, I am not.

Valer.
But, my child,
Those eyelids, tender as the leaf of spring,—
Those cheeks should lay their roseate delicacy
Under the kiss of night, the feathery sleep;
For there are some, whose study of the morn
Is ever thy young countenance and hue.
Ah maid! you love.

Attend.
I'll not deny it, madam.
O that sweet influence of thoughts and looks!
That change of being, which, to one who lives,
Is nothing less divine than divine life
To the unmade! Love? Do I love? I walk
Within the brilliance of another's thought,
As in a glory. I was dark before,
As Venus' chapel in the black of night:
But there was something holy in the darkness,
Softer and not so thick as other where;
And, as rich moonlight may be to the blind,
Unconsciously consoling. Then love came,
Like the out-bursting of a trodden star,
And what before was hueless and unseen
Now shows me a divinity, like that
Which, raised to life out of the snowy rock,
Surpass'd mankind's creation, and repaid
Heaven for Pandora.

Valer.
Innocently thought,
And worthy of thy youth! I should not say
How thou art like the daisy in Noah's meadow,
On which the foremost drop of rain fell warm
And soft at evening; so the little flower
Wrapped up its leaves, and shut the treacherous water
Close to the golden welcome of its breast,—
Delighting in the touch of that which led
The shower of oceans, in whose billowy drops
Tritons and lions of the sea were warring,
And sometimes ships on fire sunk in the blood
Of their own inmates; others were of ice,
And some had islands rooted in their waves,
Beasts on their rocks, and forest-powdering winds,
And showers tumbling on their tumbling self,—
And every sea of every ruined star
Was but a drop in the world-melting flood.—

Attend.
Lady, you utter dreams.

Valer.
Let me talk so:
I would o'erwhelm myself with any thoughts;
Ay, hide in madness from the truth. Persuade me
To hope that I am not a wretched woman,
Who knows she has an husband by his absence,
Who feels she has a father by his hate,
And wakes and mourns, imprisoned in this house,
The while she should be sleeping, mad, or dead.—
Thou canst, and pity on thine eyelid hangs,
Whose dewy silence drops consent,—thou wilt!
I've seen thee smile with calm and gradual sweetness,
As none, that were not good, could light their cheeks:—
Thou wilt assist me. Harden not those lips,
Those lovely kissings let them not be stone
With a denial!

Attend.
But your father's anger,—
The watchful faith of all the servants—

Valer.
Fear not:
Lend me thy help. O come,—I see thou wilt.—
Husband, I'll lay me on thine aching breast
For once and ever.—Haste! for see, the light
Creates for earth its day once more, and lays
The star of morn's foundation in the east.
Come—come—

[Exeunt.