University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—An Eminence commanding the Sea, in the eastern extremity of Fife.
Seer and Attendant.
SEER.
Guide me, O friend, to where the loftiest point,
Marring the level of this land of Fife,
O'erlooks the broadest circuit of the main;
A sight is there I am ordain'd to see,
And weep, and cry aloud upon.

ATTENDANT.
Stand here;
This is the place;—cast eastward hence thine eyes;—
Lo! Ocean spread before thee in her huge
Out-scooped basin of world-washing waves;
Here seen embarr'd by her bare belt of rocks,
Yonder far off mingling insensibly
With heaven's great span of blue, that sea from sky
Cannot by sight be sunder'd.

SEER.
So man's life
Is at the present broken and barr'd in
By the harsh rocks of daily misery,
Whereon his passing peace is ever dash'd;
But in the distant future mingles down
Insensibly with heaven, till heaven and life
Seem one, alike eternal and serene.
What seest thou yonder? Strain thine eyes athwart
The floods; haply thy young eye's nerve may note
Low on th'horizon's uttermost confine
Some mote which mine, by sorrow's mists o'er-run,
May not discern.

ATTENDANT.
There's nought upon the deep
Save the white crests of waves that the eastern wind
Whips sportfully into small curls of foam,
As o'er their heaving and unnumber'd tops
He gallops in his gladness to the shore.

SEER.
O name not gladness, for that word to-day
Is banish'd from the rich dawn-cradling east;
The morn may from her sapphire chambers come,
Besprinkling all the universe with beams;
But joy comes not for Scotland! Yet dost thou
See nothing?

ATTENDANT.
I behold a puny point,
A pin-head of dim dusk, dimensionless,
Far in the east, even in the act of birth
From very nothing.

SEER.
Turn thine eye now southward;—
What seest thou there?

ATTENDANT.
I see a darksome cloud
Up-steaming from the bowels of the sea
In haste to meet the sun, and twine itself
About his sheeny and meridian horns,
And muffle him in sables.

SEER.
Ay,—'tis so;
I know it well; I knew it should be so;
The germ of black misfortune bourgeons now,
And swells with death just just about to break:—
Once more look tow'rd the east;—Has that dim point
As yet evolv'd and clear'd itself into
Distinguishable shape of diving hulk,
Tall mast, and curved sail?

ATTENDANT.
Methinks it does;
I see a gallant frigate marching on
As if instinct with living glee, her sails
Bolstering th'up-hoisted yards, and her huge hull
In blackness all distinct.

SEER.
'Tis she; 'tis she;
Black, black, tomb-black as the calamitous
And dismal freight she is surcharged with!
Disaster rides upon her rolling mast;
The moon-ey'd moping Melancholy sits
Astern, and hardly guides her erring helm;
Black-stoled Grief presides upon the prow,
Making her ever and anon duck down
For tears into the saltish floods below!
I see the vesture that so late did pall
A maiden's corse, now topmost-high unroll'd,
Wreathing its dusky deathful drapery
Within th'embraces of the flapping wind:
O thou dull symbol of announced death!
O vessel, vessel, would I could not see thee!
Would but the western wind arise and blow
Thy dead unwhisper'd tidings with thee back
Into the unopen'd chambers of the east!
Alas, thou struttest on with stately pomp,
As if in pride presenting to our shores
The gallantry of mourning thou hast on!
Like simple child following his mother's bier,
Proud in his sables and long-flowing crapes:—
Thou comest,—and I weep; and all our land,
Awaked to bitter consciousness, shall weep,
Dating her troublous period from what time
Thy sullen hulk o'er-peers above the sea:
O thou dear, dreary, queen-bereaved land!
Tears, many tears await thee, more than those
Big drops of rain that now conglobe beneath
The muffled sun, to fall upon thy soil,
Mix'd with the lightning's grisly arrow'd bolts;—
Hark, hark, the thunder rolls, and o'er the Frith
Growls his tempestuous trumpet-peal; fit note
T'upstart the land to anguish, and prelude
The storms and bloody turbulence of men!
Enough: I see, I hear it all; O mouth,
Be silent now; tear-pregnant eyes now speak,
Tears are the comeliest language for the time!