 | Adelaide : or The Emigrants |  |
21
ACT II.
SCENE I.
The Ruins of a Monastery.Enter Lunenberg and Colbert.
Lunen.
This ruined holiness, those sepulchres
Are loved by Adelaide; and here to-night
Perchance I may behold her; e'en from hence
I've seen her raise her fine face up to heaven:
Sometimes a cloud that floated near the moon
Enclosed her form within its shadowy veil,
And when the lovely orb emerged again,
Methought she seemed more beautiful and sad.
Colb.
But, Lunenberg, these towers of ages gone
That cast their awful shadows o'er the soul,
Were fitter place of congress for the elves
And all the populace of poesy.
Lunen.
Our loves are melancholy. Marvel not
That we should haunt a place so wild and wizard.
The soul of Adelaide is sorrowful,
And, like a moon-beam, rests upon a tomb.
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Oh! I have seen the day when Lunenberg
Had spurned the sickly phrase of sentiment,
And the fierce beauty of Bellona's frown
Inflamed the soaring thought: then if perhaps
His eye would glance upon the face of nature,
He sought a bright similitude of fame.
I've heard thee say, when we have strayed at eve
Along the shores of fair Geneva's lake
And watched the summit of a distant peak,
Red with the glories of the parting day,
That thus hereafter, while the rest of men
Lay in oblivion's wide obscurity,
Memory would throw her radiance on the great
Who rise like mountains o'er the sphere of time.
Lunen.
Still am I what I was. The long array
Of war, embattled in a field of flame,
The shock of nations and the cannon's roar,
The headlong rush of charging cavalry,
The clangor of the trumpet, and the shout,
Yet croud ambition's vision. Once indeed
I knew no thrill of rapture save renown:
And o'er my soul the other passions blew
As winds o'er Lapland's ocean; but at length
A furious passion burst the icy plain
And rages here: I love.
Colb.
Why then love on:
Renounce your glory.
Lunen.
Never.
Colb.
Yield your fame,
And bear the scorn of courtiers as you pass,
Or tear this cancer passion from your breast.
Lunen.
Stab through my heart, for you must seek it there.
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Yet are there other instruments of peace.
Lunen.
Then teach me where they are, and I will grasp them.
Colb.
Fly from this spot, and ere the dawn of day
Return we to Vienna.
Lunen.
'Ere I see,
Or hear, or touch, that every ravished sense
May tremble like a lyre when I depart,
With soft vibrations of remembered joy!
Colb.
To-night, my lord, to-night, or ruin waits you.
Lunen.
Why then let ruin come. I'll hear no more.
Begone, nor freeze me with thine oracles.
Colb.
Then stay; be passion's play thing; from thy brow
Pluck the oppressive helmet's warrior weight,
And be a woman's slave.
[Exit.
Lunen.
Thou dost not know
That in the rushing stream of destiny
I have plunged headlong down, and 'tis in vain
To fight against the torrent. Fate, roll on,
And bear me to perdition! I'll not think,
For reason cannot stay necessity,
But calmly stands upon the precipice
And lifts her torch above the black profound
To point the gulf, but cannot check the passions
That, like a band of furies, seize the soul
And hurl it off. It is necessity
That with a dreadful impulse leads me on.
A flaming comet shone upon my birth
And guides me to destruction.—
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Or 'tis an angel with as light a tread
Has ta'en her form to woo an angel's love.
[Enter Adelaide.]
Thou throbbing of my heart, my bane, my blessing,
My hope and my despair! my Adelaide!
Adel.
My husband! ha! (she swoons)
Lunen.
Why shrinks thy tenderness?
Ope those bright eyes, and shine upon my soul.
No, Adelaide, I would not have thee wake!
Thus let me hold thee! Unsubstantial beings,
Ætherial spirits! ye that round us bathe
In yon pure deeps your incorporeal forms,
Do you not envy man's material sense,
And all the rapture of an earthly touch?
Adel.
It was the voice of Lunenberg, and came
Like midnight music down a wooded lake.
My fancy oft has played the fool with me,
But ne'er with such a semblance of the truth.
Lunen.
I hold thee near my heart: I have thee here:
I gaze upon thee, travel o'er thy charms,
And feed each kindled sense with all thy beauties.
O thou sweet trembler, would that poison dwelt
Within the dewy roses of thy lip,
That I might kiss the sweet contagion thence,
And die.—My love! my life!
Adel.
My timorous soul
Distrusts the dear delight. It is himself,
It is my Lunenberg. This fainting heart,
Can scarce sustain the oppressive load of bliss
That weighs it down, and sickens in the pleasure.
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I come to thee, as exiles to their country.
Adel.
And be my heart thy home. Thou ne'er again
Shall wander from thy tender Adelaide,
For I have wept to think how far away
My Lunenberg hath strayed. Full oft at night
Have I stood here, a lone contemplatist,
And gazed on yon fair hermit of the sky,
That seemed to rise more sadly o'er my sorrows
And pity my abandonment. But oh!
If it was pain to part, there's surely bliss
In thus beholding thee.
Lunen.
And can the shout
That fills the ear of conquest, can the pomp
Of triumph, winding up the mount of fame,
Touch with thy sweet sublimity of joy?
Thrones of the world, I see you now beneath me.
Oh! thou art all that wishing man can hope for:
The glorious stars have not a joy beyond thee.—
She weeps! My Adelaide, why are these tears?
Why heaves that bosom that was made for pleasures?
And swell those waves upon a sea of bliss?
Adel.
My father, oh!
Lunen.
Speak, Adelaide, thy father?
Adel.
If e'er you loved me—
Lunen.
Loved thee, Adelaide!
The flame that mounts from Ætna, does not burn
Through the black night so fiercely as the fire
That rages through the darkness of my soul.
If e'er I loved!
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Be calm: oh listen to me.
Lunen.
Then smile, and I will gaze upon thy smile,
And feel contagious gentleness effuse
A magic influence. A madman's eye
Would lose the fury of its raging glance
If once it rested upon Adelaide:
And there is music in that warbled voice
Will pour its sweetness o'er my troubled soul,
As if an angel's harp was heard in hell
Adel.
Count Holstein—
Lunen.
What of him?
Adel.
Has sought my hand.
Lunen.
I'll leap upon him with a tiger's plunge.
Adel.
When I refused to wed, my father frowned,
And bade me leave him. Scarce had I retired,
When, with the terrors of a thunder's peal,
He summoned me before him. With dismay
I saw him lift his clenched hand to heaven,
And an exalting wrath inspired his form.
He cried that he would bear me hence for ever.
Lunen.
From hence for ever!
Adel.
Fly, disclose our marriage:
Implore a blessing on our wedded loves.
Lunen.
He must not hear of it.
Adel.
You never loved me. (weeping)
And you are come to triumph o'er my sorrows;
To smile upon the ruin you have made;
To part—what! part! what! never see thee more!
To know, while thus you strain me to your bosom,
That I must never feel its pulse again.
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Renounce, abandon me. I'll weep indeed,
And oh! there was a time when Adelaide
Would not have wept in vain; but if my tears,
And if the breaking of this wretched heart
Can yield thee joy, I will not murmur at it.
I'll lose thee for thyself: go, Lunenberg,
Pursue ambition's meteor.—
Yet grant me this, it is an humble prayer,
Will you not sometimes think of Adelaide?
There is a place among the whitening tombs
Where first I heard thy words of tenderness
And listened to perdition: when I'm dead,
As speedily I shall be, let my grave
Be very humble in that mournful spot.
I pray thee sometimes visit it at eve:
And when you look upon the fading rose
That grows beside a pillar down the aisle,
And watch it drooping in the twilight dews,
Then think of one who bloomed a little while,
E'en as that sickly rose, and bloomed to die.
Lunen.
(embracing her)
Who now shall take thee hence? who now shall part us?
Adel.
Why did ye curse me with this bane of being?
Lunen.
Oh! thou wert made for love, for frantic love!
Come, Adelaide.
Adel.
And whither would you lead me?
(The voice of St. Evermont is heard in the Forest.)
Where art thou, Adelaide? where is my child?
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O Lunenberg! it is my father's voice.
I am not wont to tarry here so late,
And now they seek me. Tell him, tell him all,
And save me from this horrid secrecy.
[Enter Godfrey]
Godf.
Do I behold my noble master's daughter?
O heavens! and in the arms of Lunenberg.
(Godfrey rushes up.)
Lunen.
Go stop a thunderbolt.
Godf.
She is their all.
Adel.
O Godfrey, take me with you.
Godf.
Hold, my lord!
Old as I am, you shall not wrong the child
Of Count St. Evermont; and in the name—
Lunen.
Aye, in the name of love's superior power
I throw thee off.
Godf.
You make me bless the hour
I lost my child. (he falls)
Adel.
What hast thou done?
Lunen.
Preserved thee.—
Rise fiends from hell, rush angels down from heaven,
Nor heaven nor hell shall rob thee from my heart.
[Exit carrying Adelaide.
Godf.
I had a daughter once, and she was fair;
And on that eve, in beauteous Languedoc,
She did entreat that I would lead her forth
To fix her dying eyes upon the west,
When I beheld consumption's mocking bloom
Flush in the rosy light, my heart was smote;
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When I stood by the couch on which she lay
And I beheld her dead, I wished to die;
But now I thank thy will unsearchable
That deigned to take my daughter to thyself,
For she went white and innocent to heaven.
[Exit.
SCENE II.
The Forest.—Rocks are seen in the back-ground.Enter Madame St. Evermont and Julia.
Mad.
Talk not to me of marriage—I'll not hear it.
I know but this, that Lunenberg's returned
And Adelaide is gone. Where is my child?
Speak, tell me where thou art: oh! answer me.
Julia.
She said that in the very deep of night,
Amid the abbey's ruined solitude,
The holy rite was done.
Mad.
(who has not listened)
Oh! do not speak,
Lest you disturb the quiet of the air,
And then—Hark! there—a step—it comes this way.
'Tis she. 'Twas nothing but the fitful breeze
That rustled through the multitude of leaves.
Julia.
Perhaps—
Mad.
Perhaps! It is a blessed sound,
And hope is fond of it. The sable slave
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In evening's breathing hour, and says ‘perhaps.’
The captive in his darksome prison house
Doth watch a ray of light upon the wall,
And gives an utterance to the holy word.
'Tis heard within Potosi's silver tombs,
Gasps in the fetid air of hospitals,
And in the naked hut of poverty.
Why is that comfort then denied to me?
Why then not say ‘perhaps’? Speak it again:
It is a drop of balm upon my heart.
Julia.
(pointing to the rocks)
Look there: it is the Count St. Evermont.
He rushes up the rocks: he has ascended:
See where he stands upon the precipice.
Mad.
Let me not lose him too!
[Enter St. Evermont, descending from the rocks.]
St. Ever.
I'll tell thee, woman,
The horrid hope that, like a lightning's glare,
Flashed on my soul, and winged me to that height.
I stood upon the gulf's terrific verge,
That I might see one drop of pendent blood
Upon a bramble's leaf. 'Twere exstacy
To find the bleeding bosom of my child
Burst on the pointed ridges of a rock:
Some scattered limb—to hear a dying groan!
Mad.
What! hope her dead! my child, my Adelaide!
St. Ever.
The child were lost—but honor had been mine—
I would have followed her.
Mad.
Almighty power!
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Thou shalt not pray: the angels laugh at thee.
I dwelled in palaces, and ruled in courts:
Thou wert my wife. Oh! I was very happy.
Hark thee, and wither! I beheld the blood
Reek from my consecrated monarch's head,
And then I prayed: I saw my house in flames:
Thy frenzied shriek is yet within my brain:
At morn I knelt me on the smoking pile,
And still I prayed: I saw thee shrink away
Beneath the pelting of the warring tempest,
And still I prayed: at last I found a friend
Who did receive my sorrows, soothed my grief,
And robbed me of my child. I'll pray no more.
[Enter Godfrey.]
Mad.
Speak, is she safe? I'll kneel, and at thy feet
I'll pay thee with a mother's burning tears.
Godf.
I sought the abbey's aisles, for there I knew
That she was wont to linger.
Mad.
And you found her?
You found my child?
Godf.
Within a villain's arms.
(Madame St. Evermont faints in Julia's arms.)
Godf.
I threw myself upon my aged knees,
And strove to wake a pity in his heart:
And when he spurned my supplicating hands,
I roused a vigor in my trembling frame
And rushed to save her from his impious clasp,
When with a blow he threw me to the ground.
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Upon this whitened head, and time has bent
This feeble form, or I had never brooked
To see the child of Count St. Evermont—
St. Ever.
Oh! wake me, wake me from this horrid dream,
And drive these phantoms off.
Godf.
Have mercy on him!
St. Ever.
Ha! there it is again—
He rifles all the treasures of her bosom.
Hold! ruffian, hold! That kiss—I'll kneel to thee,
I will entreat thy mercy, Lunenberg,
Spare, spare the consolation of a father.
Behold me kneel who never knelt before:
Be not more cruel than my cruel fortune,
And rob me not of what my fortune left.
It is the central fibre of the heart
That knits the parent and the child together.
Thou wilt not? I will dare thee to the fight:
Villain, come on.
(St. Evermont in his frenzy imagines he is fighting Lunenberg.)
He falls: do not forgive him.
[Rushes out, followed by Godfrey.
Julia.
Where does he rush? where does his frenzy lead him?
And here is yet another spectacle
Of utter wretchedness. Returning life
Dawns on her face, and she awakes to grief:
Her eyes are oped in horrid vacancy.
There yet is room for hope.
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Hope is a cheat:
I'll none of it. Bring back my child to me:
Then only bid me hope. Oh! do not press me,
Thine arms are not so soft as Adelaide's,
Nor canst thou fill me with thy cold embrace.
What was my sin in my prosperity
That she should leave me too? Do I deserve
To be this childless desolated wretch?
[Exeunt.
END OF THE SECOND ACT.
| Adelaide : or The Emigrants | |