 | Count Julian |  |
13
SCENE III.
Enter Count Julian.Count.
(At first not perceiving Rupert.)
My heart can still be glad. O! what a joy,
To feel that I've known joy again. How sweet
Is this revisiting. Thanks—thanks. Yet not
That my sole child is sav'd to me. O! I
Were thankful rather for bereavement. Loss
Takes from my weight which favour heaps. But therefore,
That my shrunk heart hath leapt with its prime life,
And goodness yet hath power to touch me.—Ha!
Arrest this day, young man, in thy time's flight:
Dam up the rushing past with this day's work,
That thence its head thy life-stream's current take.
Make it the parent of thy other days,
That each with a transmitted virtue be
Impregnate. Learn thy might from the one deed.
Thou'st sav'd a human life. On thy arm hung,
With its infinity of consequence,
A fellow's being. Heaven's will seconding,
Thou re-bestow'dst its dearest gift.
Herein thou'rt rarely biest; in opportunity,
And that thou used'st it. In the strong will
That swayed thee to this act of nobleness
There is a potency to make occasions
For good. O! cherish it. And when the fiends
That, hell-commissioned, tend on mortal footsteps,
Watching to bend into a deadly fall
Each faltering, shall lay their poisonous fangs
14
With its erecting virtue bracing thee
Shake loose their blighting hold.—Take a father's thanks.
Rupert.
A father's thankfulness so magnifies
My simple act, that what I've done to me
Now seems less than it should have been. The worth
Your liberal interpretation wakes,
Chides my slow deed which halts so far behind it.
Count.
It is the proper quality of virtue
Unto itself to be unknown. The thought
That stirs to weigh the action's excellence,
Beclouds the very fontal head of good,
That thence no clear flow issues, but a foul,
Incapable to hold the light-dy'd image
Of heaven-descending goodness. When th' effect
Is parcel of the deed, with one same act
The doer gives and grasps; and in th' encounter
Of these two opposites, Virtue, that knows
No double bent, confounded, vanishes.
Rupert.
My ear to its best heedfulness is won,
Hearing respoke the wisdom it is used to,
As with discursive speech and pithy comments
My father sweetens each day's toil-earn'd rest.
Count.
What gives to ag'd discourse its pregnancy
Is mostly the neglected seed, which tells
Of many flowers unpluckt. Thus, early loss
Is sometimes after gain, and age's strength,
Which is in counsel, draws a nourishment
From manhood's impotence. Much of our wisdom
Is but the rattle of deserted shells
Whose kernels scap'd us. We're the fools of Fate,
And even our best knowledge often is
15
Ah! trust not Fate. Would'st ask a Giant aid thee
To heap a load thyself must single bear?
(Enter Ada.)
Ha! Well—what will'st thou?
Ada.
(To Rupert.)
Sir, you're waited for.
The board is spread; and even now you're chid
For absence, in my cousin's thought, who deems,
That from true woodmen, no less quick obedience
Is to the smoking table's summons due,
Than to th' impatient horn, that e'er the sun
Hath touch'd the ready portals of the East,
Hurries from his still bed the dreamy morning.
Rupert.
So happy is the day to me, that I
Forget to note time's ordinate divisions.
Count.
Like Heav'n-approved blessings may its spirit
Hover protective o'er thee. Ada, thou
Dost know our sum of obligation: let
Our welcome freely speak acknowledgment,
And predenote our bounty.
Ada.
Your commands,
My uncle, shall have full obedience. They
Do make free passage to my inclinations.
For with the thought that but for this brave stranger
A wo unspeakable now rent our house,
Gushes the wish to heap upon his head
Of what we through him still possess,—our all
Of happiness,—as much as openest hands
And joyful'st spirits can impart, and he
Receive.
Count.
My child, 'tis well.
(Exit.)
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My act, e'en now
Common and insignificant, has caught
A beauty from thy words; and art thou what
Thou look'st, must have a value; for a soul
Thus fair could by naught worthless be so touch'd.
Ada.
What suddenly thus moves you?
Rupert.
I have heard,
There is a creed, that this our corporal frame
Is only one of many tenements,
Wherein th' eternal spirit for a time
Resides, in transitory lodgment; and
That in each state of thrall, although subdued
Unto its habitation's quality,
Yet has its glimpses of a former being.
More momentary and untraceable
Than earthly memories, a flash, that strove
To snatch me to the past, but now, as I
Beheld thee, did enwrap my brain in light.
'Tis gone, and vainly in thy visage, whence
It seem'd to break, I seek its birth to trace.
But to your cousin's summons; I shall mar
My welcome, if we further stretch his patience.
| Count Julian | |