 | Alfred |  |
SCENE III.
Alfred, Hermit.Hermit.
Your enterprise is bold—and may be fatal:
Yet I condemn it not. All is not rashness,
That valor of more common size might think,
And caution term so. Souls of nobler scope,
Whose comprehensive sight beholds at once
And weighs the sum of things, are their own rule,
And to be judg'd but by themselves alone.
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Then, in the name of that inspiring Power,
Whose deputy I am, who sends me forth
His minister of vengeance, on I go
To victory, or death.
[As he is going out, he stops short.
What do I feel?
Save me! a holy horror stirs my frame,
And shivers thro each vein—What shapes are these,
Athwart the gloom, that strike my dazled sense?
Betwixt and where yon mist along the marsh
Rowls blue it's vapoury wave, some unseen hand
Pourtrays in air the visionary scene
Distinct and full, in brighter colors drawn
Than summer suns reflect on evening cloud,
When all it's fluid bosom glows with gold—
And now, it reddens into blood!
Hermit
, who had observed him fixedly, half-aside.
Ere night
Withdraws her shade, new accidents and strange
Will shake this island's peace.
[To him.
Now, Alfred, now,
Be all the hero shewn.
Alfred.
What may this mean?
| Alfred | |