University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FIRST.

Discovering the Duke D'Ormond asleep on a sofa, the Marchioness de Mielcour seated near him with a harp, on which she plays a short air.
(The Duke starting vehemently from the sofa. The Marchioness rises to meet him, and catches him in her arms).
DUKE D'ORMOND.
'TIS she! 'tis she! Do not you see her there?—

[The Marchioness looks about, then again turns to the Duke.]
DUKE D'ORMOND.
Dead! Julia! dead! No! I will not believe it:
This is the very coinage of my brain!

MARCHIONESS DE MIELCOUR.
What ails you, Duke? Speak, dearest D'Ormond, speak!
Why are your eyes so fixed? and why do you
To one part of the room so earnestly
Direct your looks? There is nothing to be seen
There more than usual.

DUKE D'ORMOND.
Dead, and living! both
At once! It is a fearful sight!

MARCHIONESS DE MIELCOUR.
Explain
Yourself: for heaven's sake, do!

DUKE D'ORMOND.
That voice! That voice!—
Is it not altered? 'Tis not as it should be!
Julia!
[Looking at the Marchioness, and then suddenly turning from her.]
Why take that shape, that damned shape!
Speak; I conjure thee, speak; but in the tones
Of thy own voice, of thy own natural voice.

MARCHIONESS DE MIELCOUR.
D'Ormond!

DUKE D'ORMOND
(stopping his ears).
Oh, scream not thus! Oh, fiend of hell,
What art thou? What?—

MARCHIONESS DE MIELCOUR.
Maria, thy Maria!—
Thy own beloved Maria! Is so soon
The memory of those rapturous hours effaced,
Which, ere into this inauspicious sleep
You fell, we had together passed?

DUKE D'ORMOND.
We! We!
What, you and I? Off, off! I know you not!
Why take that damned shape? If you are Julia,
Why not appear to me in Julia's form?—

MARCHIONESS DE MIELCOUR.
D'Ormond, you're ill! Yes, you are very ill.
I pray you let me send for some assistance.

DUKE D'ORMOND
(with a bitter smile).
Ill? yes, I am ill! I begin to feel
Very ill! It has been a dream! But oh,
Such an one, as, with which, not to have been
Troubled, I would life's forfeiture have held—
E'en were that life a thousand times more worth
Than mine is,—a cheap compromise!—
Sit down
By me, Maria! I begin to know you
Now!
[Again looking towards the place on which he had so earnestly, and so frequently gazed.]
Is she there? I seem to see her yet!—
There!
[Pointing to the place.]
(To the Marchioness).
You remember what I said to you
Last night, of Julia? Nay, start not! Be calm.
Look not at me so! Be calm, very calm.
For I my senses feel o'th' very brink
Of alienation! Be calm, very calm!
You recollect that which I said of Julia?—
Listen, and keep that in your mind! I dreamed
That thou in a delicious paradise,
And I, together wandered. Round us breathed
Strains of the most entrancing harmony!—
We seemed like blessed immortals newly winged.
As if reflecting back the happiness,
Calm, and intense at once that filled us both,
Forms both inanimate and animate
Of beauty sprung, where'er we bent our gaze.
At once, a feeling of reality,
Was, as respected these forms, given to us,
And, to the other, each allowed, and we
Had a sense lent to us, as (in subservience
To our delight, and from the agency
Of our own wills) started to sudden birth
This wonderful assemblage of rich shapes.
Gardens, and plants of amaranthine bloom,
Bloom such as Eden only saw, conceived
Alone, by such as dwell in paradise.
Unfading bowers, and trees of lofty size,
Umbrageous, rich in leaves, and flowers, and fruits;
Immortal streams of living crystal!—founts
Of pure and everlasting copiousness.—
And gorgeous palaces, pavilion-like,
Meet temples e'en for gods. To crown all these
Seraphic forms, such as the eye ne'er saw;
Seraphic voices, such as ear ne'er heard!
Seraphic smiles, such as would win to love
A heart where fellest hate had fixed its seat.
A fervid light, intense, yet pure and holy,
Like a blessed halo, our transfigur'd forms
Enveloped. Thou and I wandered at will
In this delicious paradise! Love, deep,
Calm, permeating, cheerful, yet sublime,
Like that of innocent, adoring spirits
Transporting, ardent, yet accompanied
With the most perfect self-tranquillity,
The soul of each possessed. At once the scene
All changed! unutterable darkness now
Surrounded us. The atmosphere became
Clammy, pitch-like, and close, and nothing now
Was visible, except, from time to time,
When corruscations lurid and sulphureous,
Revealed to us, such mansions of dismay,
Such scenes of horror, as in ghastliness
Outstripped e'en any of those which the bard
Of Florence, or that greater British son
Of song immortal, have so well pourtrayed.
Chasms, yawning chasms; clouds both thunder-voiced,
And black as Erebus; bickerings horrible
Of light unnatural; now of yellow, dun
And tawny, now of fiercest lurid red.
Unutterable groans, and yells, and screams;
Lakes of bitumen, and of weltering pitch,
Emitting a sulphureous fetidness
Even to suffocation: these, and such
As these, the objects were that smote our senses.—
In one, the blackest interval of darkness,
Betwixt the corruscations I described
I suddenly perceived that, by my side,
You were no more; since, when I called on you,
No longer you made answer to my call,
As you had heretofore. Into a vast
Interminable desert, in an instant,
Of polar ice and snow was metamorphosed
This chaos of infernal images;
Rugged,—abrupt,—ice-cliff on ice-cliff piled,
And nought beside, into the firmament
Started around me! Dense and noisome fog,
O'er the whole brooded! Such a yellow fog
As, in the winter oft o'ercanopies
Some vast metropolis! and when the eye,
On the monotonous and wintry waste
With gazing tired, its speculation fixed
Where rolled (in solemn masses ocean-like,
Billowy and multitudinous as its waves)
Volumes of vapour, 'twas in canopy,
Though moving, yet impenetrable, lost!—
The only thing worse to endure than sight
Of the unbounded solitude around me
On every side, were—e'en to fearfulness—
To awful, unexpressive fearfulness—
The sentiment of mental solitude
That, at the same time, was on me impressed;
With such a sense of cold, such corse-like cold,
As I had been a petrifaction, yet
To life, and thought inexorably chained.
For some short space this lasted. Presently
I, as it were, heard th' utterance of my name.
It seemed as if it were “a wandering voice”
That floated in the air. No where it was,
Yet every where; nor was it more allied
To form, than 'twas to place. I afterwards
Near to the base of fissure in a cliff
Of ice, espied an aperture, that had
The semblance of the entrance to a cave.
Thither my steps instinctively were urged.
When I had entered it, the fissure seemed
More narrow; and that—which externally
Had had appearance, from the top o'th' cliff
To the bottom, of continuous separation;
Now o'er my head was arched! and at the end
Of a long narrow avenue, to which
The vision but imperfectly extended,
A light gleam, which, as I had now advanced
Further, than to receive a benefit
From the murky twilight of the solitude
I'd left, was, to this vault's extremity
My only guide! Onward I went, and what
Was my surprize, when I came to the end
Of this ice-fretted passage, to behold
Roofed, walled with ice, and with ten thousand cressets
Of crystalline transparency illumed,
A circular magnificent apartment.
At the far end of this, on gorgeous couch,
Or sofa, on an area placed, to which
By steps of ice, transparent, you ascend,
Beneath a canopy profusely decked
With festooned curtains, and rich drapery,
Luxuriant from its amplitude of folds,
Of gossamery lightness, I saw you,
Maria, seated in immortal beauty.
You beckoned me to you with all that grace
Of earnestness, with delicacy temper'd,
Which is your own peculiar attribute.—
Forward I rushed to clasp you in my arms.
A crash, as of the loudest thunder, smote
My ear! The whole scene vanished! and I saw,
In the same place in which I saw her last,
Julia, a corse, in my embrace. I did
Maria! But thou art not she? My brain
Is all on fire! Is not she there? Art thou
A vision or reality? If thou
Be a reality, come to my arms!
Is not she there?