University of Virginia Library

THE BROKEN HEART.

SCENE I.

—A Room.
Jeronymo. His Mother.
MOTHER.
What have I said that you affect this humour?
Come, look less strangely. Is your anger dumb?
Speak out. Jeronymo?

JERONYMO.
You have done this?

MOTHER.
I did: 'Twas for your good.

JERONYMO
Oh, mother, mother!
You have broke the fondest heart in Italy.
My good, what's that? Is't good that I shall die?
Is't good that I shall pine and fade away,
And take no comfort? None? O yes! Through all
My melancholy days I'll haunt the nest
Where my white dove lies guarded—

MOTHER.
Patience, boy.

JERONYMO.
Until I die, stern mother. I shall die,
Like people smit by lightning, suddenly.

MOTHER.
Live and be crowned with Love.

JERONYMO.
Why so I will,
And wear white roses on my ghastly brow,
And laugh at fate, like that forced bride who fell
Dead on her marriage morning. I'll be gone.
If she be false—Come with me, madam! False?
Sylvestra false? Sylvestra?

MOTHER.
Name her not,
The bitter cause whence all our sorrow springs.
You must not think of her.

JERONYMO.
Not think of her?

MOTHER.
No; she is married.

JERONYMO.
Ha, ha, ha! good mother.
Shame on your cruel jest: be grave—and gentle.

MOTHER.
I told you this before: she's married—married!
Do I speak plain?

JERONYMO.
Too plain, if you speak true.
That you may know I heed your tale, look at me!
Am I not—broken-hearted?

MOTHER.
Oh! sweet heavens.
I have done too much. (Aside)
How pinched and pale he looks!
Jeronymo, my child!

JERONYMO.
Your only child.

MOTHER.
Why do you talk thus? Prythee think on me;
On me, your mother.

JERONYMO.
Surely; for you thought
Of me in absence. I've a grateful soul:
I'll make you heir of all my father's lands,
His gems, and gold, and floating argosies:
All shall be yours; I will not live to leave
Widow or child to rob so kind a mother.

MOTHER.
Peace, peace, you hurt my heart.

JERONYMO.
I swear to do't.
By those dark Three who cut the threads of life!
By Plutus, God of gold! By Minos, judge,
And cruel Cupid! By my own lost life,
And murdered hopes, I swear!

MOTHER.
Oh! Do not talk thus.
If not for me, yet for your father's sake,
Spare me, my son!

JERONYMO.
My father? he is dead.

MOTHER.
But when he lived he was most merciful;
Tempering the angry feelings which will rise
In every mind (and lead in some to ruin)
By draughts of that divine philosophy—

JERONYMO.
O, the brave drink! Abroad, abroad, we had
Huge flasks which all went flaming to the brain.
Dark, sweet, and full of sin; and so I drank,
And drank and drank the livelong day and night,
And chewed the bitter laurel for my food,
Whose roots are watered, as wild poets tell,
By the immortal wells of Castaly.

MOTHER.
Alas, alas!

JERONYMO.
Why that looks well. I love it.

MOTHER.
What do you love, my son?

JERONYMO.
To see you weep,
Although your husband died so long ago.

MOTHER.
I do not weep for him.

JERONYMO.
Not weep for him?
Then shame seal up your mouth. Was he not kind?
Was he not good? he was; and yet you weep not;
Weep you the lazy lonely widow's life?
Tush! you may buy another husband yet.

MOTHER.
I do not wish't. I cannot match the last.

JERONYMO.
You cannot, madam; (That was true at least.)
No, though you gaze from evening dusk, till Morn
Comes climbing up the bright steps of the East;
Nay, tho' you watch for hearts from dawn till dark.
Unmatchable 'mongst men, so kind, so true,
Abhorring falsehood with a natural hate,
And full of pity was he,—but he died;
Good father! how he loved his poor pale son,
And how he feared (do you remember that?)
His race should end with me. He wished—vain wishes!
No child of mine shall ever bear our name,
And make't more noble. Lo, I am the last!
The last, last scion of a gracious tree;
For you, my mother, now have struck me down,
And withered all my branches. So, farewell.

[Going.
MOTHER.
Farewell! Yet stay! Leave pardon with me. Stay!

JERONYMO.
Farewell, and pardon! Blessings (if the son
May bless the mother) rest upon your heart.
Be calm, be happy: think of me no more.

SCENE II.

—Sylvestra's Chamber.
Jeronymo. Sylvestra.
JERONYMO.
So, all is hushed at last. Hist! There she lies,
Who should have been my own. Sylvestra! Hark!
She sleeps! and from her parted lips there comes
A fragrance, such as April mornings steal
From awakening flowers. There lies her arm, (sweet arm!)
More white than marble, on the quilted lid.
'Tis motionless. What if she lives not? Oh!
How beautiful she is! How far beyond
Those bright creations, which the fabling Greeks
Placed on their cold Olympus. That great queen
Before whose eye Jove's starry armies shrank
To darkness, and the wide and billowy seas
Grew calm, was a leper to her. Look, oh, look!
Her beauty (that most pure divinity)
Doth sway the troubled blood till it stands charmed,
Adoring,—Hark, she murmurs. Oh, how soft!
Sylvestra!

SYLVESTRA.
Ha! who's there?

JERONYMO.
'Tis I.

SYLVESTRA.
Who is it?

JERONYMO.
Must I then speak, and tell my name to you?
Sylvestra! know me now: not now? O Pain!
Hath grief indeed so changed my voice; so much
That you—you know me not? Alas!

SYLVESTRA.
Begone!
I'll wake my husband if you move a step.

JERONYMO.
Jeronymo, Jeronymo! 'tis I.

SYLVESTRA.
Ha! speak again: yet, no, no—

JERONYMO.
Hide your eyes:
Ay, hide them, married woman! lest they look
On the wreek of him who loved you.

SYLVESTRA.
Loved me? no.

JERONYMO.
Loved you like life, like heaven and happiness;
Loved you and wore your image on his heart
(Ill boding amulet) 'till death.

SYLVESTRA.
Alas!

JERONYMO.
And now I come to bring your wandering thoughts
Back to their innocent home. Do you not know,
Pale spirits have left their leaden urns, to tempt
Wretches from sin? Some have been heard to laugh
Ghastlily on—the bed of wantonness,
And touch the limbs with death.

SYLVESTRA.
You will not harm me?

JERONYMO.
Why not?—No, no, poor girl! I would not mar
Your delicate limbs with outrage. I have loved
Too well for that; too long; all our short lives.

SYLVESTRA.
Our sad short lives!

JERONYMO.
Sylvestra, you and I
Were children here some few short springs ago,
And loved like children: I the elder; you
The loveliest girl that ever tied her hair
Across a sunny brow of Italy.
I still remember how, though others wooed,
You ever preferred me.

SYLVESTRA.
I did, I did.

JERONYMO.
I think you loved me: How I loved, my heart
Still tells me trembling. So I fain would bring
You comfort ere I go. Speak! the time's short,
For death has touched me.

SYLVESTRA.
You are jesting now?

JERONYMO.
Sweet, I am dying—dying. All my blood
Grows colder as I talk; my pulses strike
More slowly; and before the morning sun
Visits your chamber through those trailing vines,
I shall lie here, here in your chamber, dead.

SYLVESTRA.
You fright me.

JERONYMO.
Yet I'd not do so, Sylvestra.
I will but tell you, you have used me harshly,
(That is not much,) and die: nay, fear me not.
I would not chill, with this decaying touch,
That bosom where the blue veins wander 'round,
Nor should thy cheek, still fresh in beauty, fade
From fear of me, a poor heart-broken wretch!
Look at me. Why, the winds sing through my bones,
And children jeer me, and the boughs that wave
And whisper loosely in the summer air,
Shake their green leaves in mockery, as to say
“We are the longer livers.”

SYLVESTRA.
Kill me not.

JERONYMO.
I've numbered eighteen winters. Much may lie
In that short compass; but my days have been
Not happy. Death was busy with our house
Early, and nipped the comforts of my home,
And sickness paled my cheek, and fancies (wild,
Strange, bright, delusive stars) came wandering by me.
There's one you know of: that—no matter—that
Drew me from out my way, (a perilous guide,)
And left me sinking. I had gay hopes too,
But heed them not; they are vanished.

SYLVESTRA.
I—Oh, heart!
I thought, (speak softly, for my husband sleeps,)
I thought, when you did stay abroad so long,
And never sent nor asked of me or mine,
You'd quite forgotten Italy.

JERONYMO.
Speak again.
Was't so indeed?

SYLVESTRA.
Indeed, indeed.

JERONYMO.
I see it;
The mother's pride, the woman's treachery.
Yet, what had I done Fortune that she could
Abandon me so entirely? Never mind't:
Have a good heart, Sylvestra: they who hate
Can kill us, but no more; that's comfort, dear!
We'll fly from our pursuers, and be quiet.
The journey is but short, and we can reckon
On slumbering sweetly with the freshest earth
Sprinkled about us: There no storms can shake
Our secure tenement; nor need we fear,
Though cruelty be busy with our fortunes,
Or scandal with our names.

SYLVESTRA.
Alas, alas!

JERONYMO.
Sweet! in the land to come we'll feed on flowers.
Droop not, my child. A happy place there is:
Know you it not (all pain and wrong shut out)
Where man may mix with angels. You and I
Will wander there with garlands on our brows,
And talk in music. We will shed no tears,
Save those of joy; nor sighs, unless for love.
Look up and straight grow happy. We may love
There without fear: no mothers there, no gold,
Nor hate, nor human perfidy; none, none.
Sweet one, we have been wronged. My own delight!
Too late I see thy gentle constancy:
Too late thy unstained love. Did'st think me changed?
Why I wrote, and wrote long, fond letters; all,
Steeped all in tears; I wrote, but you were silent.
At last suspicion touched me: I came home;
And found you married.

SYLVESTRA.
Alas!

JERONYMO.
Then I—Then I
Grew moody, and at times I fear my brain
Was fevered; but I could not die, Sylvestra,
And bid you no farewell.

SYLVESTRA.
Jeronymo!
Break not my heart thus; they—I was betrayed.
They told me you had found a face more fair
Than poor Sylvestra's; that (grown false) you had learned
To scorn your poor and childish love; ah, me!
They threatened, swore your heart was breaking; yes,
Because it wanted freedom. Then—look aside—
Then—then they—married me.

JERONYMO.
Oh!

[Cries out.
SYLVESTRA.
What is't? Speak!

JERONYMO.
The melancholy winds, which shun the day,
And mourn abroad at dark, are chaunting now
A funeral dirge for me. Sweet, let me lie
Once on thy breast: I will not chill't, my love,
With my cold cheek; nor stain it with a tear.
It is a shrine where innocent love might lie;
Where murdered love should end. For once, Sylvestra?

SYLVESTRA.
Pity me!

JERONYMO.
How I pity!

SYLVESTRA.
Talk not thus;
Though you but jest, it makes me tremble.

JERONYMO.
Jest?
Look in my eyes and mark how true my story.
Nay look: for on their glassy surface lies
Death, my Sylvestra. It is Nature's last
And beautiful effort, to bequeath a fire
To orbs whereon the Spirit sate thro' life,
And looked out in its moods of thought and joy,
Revealing all that inward worth and power,
Which else would want their true interpreters.

SYLVESTRA.
Why, now you're cheerful.

JERONYMO.
Yes; 'tis thus I'd die.

SYLVESTRA.
Now I must smile.

JERONYMO.
Do so, and I'll smile too.
I do; albeit—ah! now my parting words
Lie heavy on my tongue; my lips obey not;
And—speech—comes difficult from me. While I can,
Farewell. Your hand! I cannot see it.

SYLVESTRA.
Ah!—cold.

JERONYMO.
'Tis so: but scorn it not, my own poor girl.
They've used us hardly—hardly; yet thou wilt
Forgive them? One's a mother, and may feel,
When that she knows me dead. Some air; more air:
Where are you? I am blind; my hands are numbed:
This is a wintry night. So,—cover me.

[Dies.