University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A Gothic Castle, in a Forest.—The Ruins of a Monastery are seen at a distance.—Evening.
Enter Count Lunenberg and Colbert.
Lunenberg.
Colbert, we hail our travels' end, and reach
The aged towers of Gothic Lunenberg.

Colb.
It is a place of loneliness: and here
The noise and tumult of the distant world
Are like the fall of some far cataract.

Lunen.
I am your debtor, that you left with me
Vienna's range of high-piled palaces,
And journey hither.

Colb.
This romantic scene
Has recreative power: but you, my lord,
When Hymen's solemn rite demands your stay
At Austria's court, and e'en the emperor
Commands the union of your noble house
With her, whose fortunes and high ancestry
Of fame and sway give golden promises,
Why seek again these unfrequented domes?

Lunen.
I would be great. Ambition in my heart
Has reared her throne, with all the retinue
Of lofty thought and noble enterprize:
Glory has bent her burning eye upon me,
And woos me to her charms: but do not think so,
No other joy can nestle in my soul.
If the proud eagle soar against the sun,
Is there no down upon the eagle's breast?

Colb.
I know thee, Lunenberg; thy heaven is fame,
Thy thought is mounting fire, and shoots to heaven.
In boy-hood's budding years you were my friend,
And even then I hailed the impetuous hope,
The daring mind, and fine extravagance
Prophetic of the man: ere since that time
I have beheld you in imperial council,
Or in the fields of war pursue renown.
What other passion?

Lunen.
One of mighty power.

Colb.
Then are you changed. You are no more the man.

Lunen.
I am not changed: the torrent is the same,
But rolls along another precipice.
It is not love, for I have heard that love
Was a soft longing of the pensive soul,
A suspiration of most gentle sighs,
An eye now sadly bent upon the earth,
Now movelessly contemplative of heaven;
But if such things be love, thou well hast said
It never could be mine: for know, my friend,
That it is desperation. Adelaide!
Betray thee, Adelaide!

Colb.
What fairy charm
Hath wound the spell of woman's influence?

Lunen.
Fast by yon abbey, through whose broken arches
The purple setting of the sun is seen
Among the trees, whose whitened blossoms seem
Spring's swelling bosom, heaved by evening's breath,
A cottage rises; there, even there she dwells
Unknown, and like a beauteous star that shines
Deep in the blue infinity of heaven,
Unseen its peaceful glory.

Colb.
Say, my lord,
Whose beauty weighs against a prince's favor?

Lunen.
When winter's weight hung down the stooping woods,
It was my chance to sojourn in this castle.
The misty-day was fading, and the wind
Heaved longer sighs among the waving trees.
Sudden a knocking of the gates was heard,
And one, who travelled through the forest gloom,
Intreated refuge from the coming night.
I went to see him: shrouded o'er with snows,
Silent he stood, and when the torch's flare
Fell on his face, all bleak and desolate,
It had the grandeur of a wilderness.
Upon his breast inanimate reclined
Two female forms, whose arms were thrown around him,
But with such feeble pressure that it seemed
As death had left them in life's attitude.
Beside him stood a man of hoary years,
Sustaining with his aged feebleness
Another shrinking woman. When I spake,
He answered not, but looked upon his wife
And on his child, and stretching forth his arm,
With supplication's mournful smile to her
Who lay supported by the old man's care,
He lowly asked a refuge from the storm
For emigrants.

Colb.
And who, at such an hour,
Of those whom fortune hurled relentlessly,
Stood at your gate?

Lunen.
The Count St. Evermont.

Colb.
Whose deeds are grown familiar in the page
Of war-recording story! Human greatness,
How art thou fallen!

Lunen.
His was a tale of woe.
'Twas on the fatal day that death's decree
Fell on his only son, he fled from Paris.
At night he reached his castle, and beheld
The tumbling spires enveloped in a flame
That kindled all the sky with conflagration.
Frantic he rushed, and from the raging fire
Preserved his wife and child; then far away
With these companions of adversity
And yet another daughter of misfortune,
He journeyed forth from France's bleeding realm.
I bade him seek in yonder green abode
Forgetfulness of sorrow. If you had seen her,
With what a look she gave me gratitude,
And threw herself upon her father's bosom,
And knelt in rapture down! Oh Adelaide!

Colb.
Misfortune is a shield of sanctity.
Your plighted faith to Austria's noblest dame
Forbids the thought of marriage. Much, my lord,
It has been marvelled at Vienna's court
That you delay, with study of pretext,
An union gilded with imperial favor.
This love is hopeless; and to cherish it,
Were cradling infant ruin in your heart.

Lunen.
Colbert, I am a weak and trembling villain,
That have not in me courage to do right,
Nor am resolved in guilt. I am a man
Who reel along from virtue into crime,
And then back to virtue. If I break
The compact which my sovereign has commanded,
His frown will blast me in my bloom of honors;
And if I yield my Adelaide, I lose
All hope of that delicious happiness
That only satisfies.

Colb.
Yet think, my lord,
Should you refuse the noble lady's hand,
Whose nuptials an imperial wish decrees,
You fly the court for ever, and must seek
That recompense in love, love ne'er can yield.
Say, shall another lead our armies forth
Which you have tutored in the art of conquest,
And win the laurels planted by your hand?

Lunen.
Oh! thou hast roused me with a trumpet's sound,
And wak'st my soul to arms. It shall not be.

Colb.
Spoke like my friend—but we are interrupted.

Enter Albert St. Evermont.
Albert.
If, as your habit speaks, you are the lord
Of yon high domes, that o'er the vast expanse
Of waving woods exalt their Gothic pride,
One who amid this leafy labyrinth
Has lost his course, and whom fatigue weighs down,
Entreats your guidance.

Lunen.
'Ere the day depart,
And yonder summits hide their golden heads
In deep obscure, you cannot hope to reach
This solitary forest's boundary;
And many a lengthened travels' weariness
Has lent a toil and effort to your step.
Whate'er of soft repose and cheering fare
These antique towers can yield, are yours to-night.

Alb.
This courtesy wears all that polished truth
Desired in palaces. I take the boon,
For I am faint with countless leagues of toil,
And I have held a fellowship with care.

Lunen.
Forgive enquiry of the cause of sorrow;
It bears no common aspect.

Alb.
Ah! my lord,
'Tis not on me alone adversity
Has loosened ruin's weight, nor I alone
Have cause to ask of heaven, why is it thus?
For there is many a one whose tears are shed
O'er those who claimed the tender name of parent,
Of sister, and of wife. May I not call her
By that endearing title, from whose arms
A band of revolution's ruffian sons
Swept me away to dungeon solitude,
E'en in the hour she owned a mutual flame.
In chains they bore me to the dread tribunal,
Where death was throned in judgment: I had reached
The engine of swift-executing murder,
And almost bowed before it, when a cry
Came on mine ear, and told the tyrant's fall.
The tumult swelled: my guards abandoned me,
I saw salvation opened to my step;
I fled—why did I fly?

Colb.
Can you lament
To have preserved what the imperious call
Of nature bade you keep?

Alb.
My life! 'twere better
I had descended to the peaceful dead,
Than wandered o'er the surface of the earth,
A forlorn emigrant! When I left the town
Where murder held his revelry of blood,
I hastened to my father's distant castle.
A heap upon the blasted plain it lay,
Blackened with conflagration. All was silent,
And wild and desolate: and none was there
To speak the fate of its inhabitants.
'Twas agony to think it; but at last
I heard a rumour in the neighbouring town,
That they had been preserved, and fled their country.
That hope, that lingering hope, allures my steps:
I seek the all that fortune yet may share.
My, lord, you seem disturbed.

Lunen.
(aside)
It cannot be.
Excuse the wanderings of my wayward thought.
Colbert, lead on.
[Colbert and Albert exeunt.
These fears are idle all.
It cannot be: and if it were, by heaven
I now have gone so far, that 'tis in vain
To wish the deed recalled. Her brother? no!
Death sends him not to fright me, from the grave:
Or, let the tomb disgorge a thousand brothers,
I'll dare them all; for I have ta'en a leap
Off from a precipice. I plunge along,
And heaven itself were impotent to save.

[Exit.