University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Enter Westmorland and Ethelwald.
Ethel.
I swear it is too much—Again permit me
To gaze, to feast my sight—again fall prostrate—
[Kneels.
To kiss the steps of my reviving lord—
My lord, my long lost lord—to touch, to clasp him,
That every sense may swear—'tis he, indeed;
And not some phantom of illusive joy,
That would abuse his servant!

West.
To my arms—
To your returning master, rise, my friend,
My long tried Ethelwald!

Ethel.
Dead! wept! entomb'd!—
Your solemn trophy rais'd!—all the sad rites,
Of dirge, and mournful obsequy!—yet thus,
To see, to feel, that things impossible
Appeal to demonstration!

West.
List, my friend,
And lose thy wonder.—
Fame says, that, on the eve of holy-cross,
Cover'd with wounds, along the blood-stain'd bank
Of southern Tyne, thy hapless master fell.
He fell, indeed!—confusion followed straight,
And rout, and darkness, that dispers'd alike
Victor, and vanquish'd. Yet, not so retired
One faithful soldier—he, o'er heaps of dead,
Sat mournful, till the moon should lift her lamp,
To light him to his lord, whom soon he found—
From my pale head he loos'd the mangled casque;
And, bending o'er me, thro' the silent night
Pour'd forth his loud affliction. To his plaint,
And the cool fresh, I rais'd my ponderous lids,
Then sunk again—Transported, all in haste
He stript my arms, and on a headless trunk
Bestow'd the rich endowment; bound my wounds,
And, with a sinewy, and a dear embrace,
Upborn, convey'd me from the field of death,
To a near hamlet.

Ethel.
Pay him, bounteous Heaven!—
Let me not taste of death, till I become
A servant to that servant!

West.
Sense, and health,
With time, return'd; till when, I held my secret.
Then did I give my fortune to the winds,
That threw me on the Dane—him long I serv'd,
Led forth his battles, and enlarged his bounds;
And, in return, he comes, my soldier now,
To free my country, and to right my quarrel.

Ethel.
Alas! my master, is it in thy leading,
That such a host of foes comes banded onward,
To lay fair Albion waste?

West.
No, Ethelwald—
My soldiers step as though on holy ground,
Smooth as a mist that moves upon the morning,
Dropping kind dew on every head, save one—
For there our vengeance levels—he, your king!—
Your precious Osbert!—lives he?

Ethel.
He does.

West.
Thank Heaven for that—O, snatch him not, ye fiends!
Set him but first within my reach of sight,
And if he scape this arm—live, Osbert, live!—
Bow, world, before thy lord—for he's immortal!—