University of Virginia Library

The Scene of the Romance.

The moon arose!

Reposing on the porch of an ancient mansion deserted
and falling to ruins, pitched on the brow of a dizzy steep;
a traveller who had journeyed far and long, looked forth
upon the night, through an opening in the trees, crowning
the verge of the cliff, and with a soul filled with silent
awe, beheld this scene of the grandeur of nature,
combined with the glories of art, and the stern memories
of a long past age.

A lovely valley lay sleeping in the moonbeams, ancient
towers, Gothic temples, domes of religion, palaces
of pleasure, rose clearly in the air, from amid gardens gay
with flowers, or forests heavy with foliage, while around
the scene of slumbering grandeur, swept the mighty Appenines,
lifting their blue peaks into the universe of azure
that arched above, silvered and tinted and mellowed by
the midnight moon.

A stream of tremulous silver, was winding brightly
thro' the valley, like a long pennon flung waving along
the blackness of night, and the towers, the temples, the
palaces and the domes of an ancient city, baptized by the
strains of the Minstrel, and consecrated by the words of
the Romancer, were seen looming over the forest trees and
massive foliage, from the dim distance of the vale.

The moon arose!

There was softness and beauty and power and might
and tenderness and love and majesty, written on the
wide sweep of that boundless sky, with its horizon of
blue mountains; there was glory, and pride and magnificence
stamped upon the sleeping bosom of the valley, the
glory of the past, the pride of by-gone ages, the magnificence
of one of nature's dreams of loveliness; there was
still and solemn silence resting on the night, and the angels
of God might look down upon the scene, and weep
to think that a land so like heaven in its gorgeousness
of beauty, should be stamped with the footsteps of crimes
too mighty for belief, wrongs too dark for the page of history,
woes steeped in the very bitterness of death.

It was the valley of the Arno, and the traveller gazed
from the height upon the distant City of Florence, surnamed
the “Fair.”

Arising in the calm moonbeams from the very centre
of the valley, the grey towers of a ruined castle, broke
abruptly into the dark azure of night, looming thro' the
distance like stern monuments of a past age, lifting to
heaven their testimony of the glory and the gloom of
the Gothic Era.

It was the Castle of Albarone, the home of a mighty
race who flourished in long past centuries. Within the
walls of the lonely castle, lonely because in ruins, rising
from the bosom of the Arno, and along the shores of a
mountain lake, not many leagues away, the tragedy of
the race of Albarone, found its theatre of action, with
vast multitudes of men looking on, spectators or actors
in its scene of varied and contrasted horror.

And as the traveller wearied with his day's journey-athirst
from fatigue and toil, uprose from his resting
place, and looked yet once more upon the night ere he
hastened on his path to the Fair City of Florence, his eye
was again met by the stern vision of the castle towering
in ruins, and over his soul came a feeling of awe and
horror, as he mused upon the crimes and mysteries of the
House of Albarone, while the night around him grew
more still, and the sky above more shadowy in its beauty.

And as he mused, a dark cloud covered the face of the
moon, hovering like a vast bird, with wings of night, and
form of omen, right above the ruined towers of Albarone.
A moment passed, the sky was again all glory and light,
while still—

The moon arose!