University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

SCENE I.

The Shore of Staffa.
Glenelg.
Forbear, forbear! allow me all my grief.
O she is lost! my Agandel is gone,
Sunk to the dungeon caverns of the sea!
Roll on, ye waves; ye winds, still wilder howl!
O never will your random tyranny
Enrich the treasures of the miser deep
With such a pearl as ye have snatch'd from me.
Lo! the just Heavens dart their avenging fires
Against the fell and furious ocean's breast.
Alas! what sound of power shall wake the sleep
Of those that wreck'd in the sea-tangle lie!

Ronaldsey.
Restrain, Glenelg, this feminine lament,
Nor thus, with rash abandonment to woe,
Surpass the raving of a woman's grief.
Come, let us quit this bleak tempestuous shore,
And seek the shelter of some cliff or cave
Till the day dawn, or the abating rain
Permit the kindling of a signal-fire,
To summon succour from the neighb'ring isles.

Glenelg.
O I could chide for ever at the waves,
For they have quench'd to me the charm of life,
Light of my soul, and sunbeam of my joy—
But in this gloom of nature and despair,
Why stand I venting to th'insensate deep
Effectless sorrow, which I thus may end?—
[Enter Caluthan.]
Ha! what art thou that dare so boldly step
Betwixt a wretch's suffering and relief?

Ronaldsey.
He has some gentleness in his wild look,
And seems by his compassionate survey
To know our shipwreck and forlorn escape.

Glenelg.
If thou canst speak, hoary, unearthly form,
Say what thou art, and what thou wouldst with us?

Caluthan.
I am a mortal, like yourselves.

Glenelg.
It speaks!
Our language too!

Caluthan.
Thrice nine times through the signs
The glorious sun his golden car hath driven,
Since the dread uproar of the winds and waves
Wreck'd my frail vessel on the rugged cliffs
That rudely fence this lone enchanted isle.

Glenelg.
How strange and hollowly his accents sound!

Caluthan.
But saving once, in such a dismal night,
No human form hath since rejoic'd my eyes.

Ronaldsey.
Art thou then here the sole inhabitant?

Caluthan.
I am: yet I am not.

Glenelg.
Who else beside?

Caluthan.
The child of one, who, like you and myself,
Was by the rash remorseless tempest cast
To pine and perish here.

Ronaldsey.
His child, sayst thou?
And yet that thou art sole inhabitant?
How may this be?

Glenelg.
Prythee explain thyself.

Caluthan.
He was a man in fancy most forlorn!
The evening's shadow and the midnight's shade,
Did more accord with his unsocial mind,
Than the bright morning or the cheerful day.
Frequent along the lonely murmuring beach
He chose his pensive solitary walk.
A Mermaid met him, and with syren songs
Woo'd him to love, and that fair child was hers.
Soon after, he fell into craze, and died,
And the sad Mermaid many a summer day
Sat moaning on the rocks expecting him.
At length the ripen'd mother's time was come,
And in a cave, between the ebb and flow,
Her beauteous progeny I chanc'd to find,
Bedded on sea-weed, sleeping on the sand.
I took the child, and bore it to my grot,
And constant, at the flowing of the tide,
Towards the rocks where the sad mother pined
I carried it, and she would smile, and come
To give maternal nourishment. Sometimes,
Pleas'd she would dandle it amidst the waves,
But ever at the ebbing of the sea
She brought it back, and laid it softly down.

Glenelg.
And still this strange and lovely offspring lives?

Caluthan.
She does. But long ago the mother died.
Her grave I dug within the high-sea mark,
And fair Marina, as I nam'd the child,
Has deck'd the much-lov'd spot with shells and pebbles,
Which, when the waves disperse, she still restores.

Ronaldsey.
What is the semblance of this sea-born nymph?

Caluthan.
You'd think her moulded to the fullest grace
That e'er voluptuous love for dalliance feign'd:—
Such is the marbly lustre of her skin,
And the enamell'd ruby of her cheek,—
Yet all so chaste and passionless her eye,
That admiration doats without desire,
As on some rare and beauteous piece of art.
She is a creature fram'd in gentleness;
The sea-cool'd current from her mother's veins
Has so allay'd the human of her blood,
That though she live to love incapable,
Her heart with maiden kindness is possess'd.
Her gay green silky hair she often braids
With curling tangle, gather'd from the rocks,
And finds a sweeter perfume in the weeds
That float umbrageous on the crystal wave,
Than all the fragrance of the mountain's breast,
And flowery pastures of the golden bee.

Glenelg.
Has she intelligence of speech or sign
To hold communion with her father's race?

Caluthan.
I taught her language; but her mind conceives
Things all awry from our accustom'd modes,
And finds delight where we should meet annoy.
She sometimes sings a sweet pathetic note,
And the rude ditty of her own conceit
Is wilder than the accents of her strain:—
But come with me into my lonely cave,
And you shall see the gentle nymph herself;
Where, if the wind sigh aught that's musical,
She'll raise her voice like one constrain'd by charms,
And tune her lay to the symphonious gale.
Come with me, strangers, this way lies the path.

[Exeunt

SCENE II.

Beneild Castle—A chamber, lights, &c.—A storm heard without.
Lady Beneild and Attendants.
Lady B.
The priest, the priest! I will make my confession.
The white-main'd waves are hungry for their prey,
And shake the islands as they leap to catch—
The priest—the holy priest, that I may tell
What mortal instigation hath enjoin'd
This Chaos of the ocean and the air—
Hark how the stamp of angry heaven doth shake
The vaulted firmament!
(thunder.)
[Enter Friar.]
Come, father, come:
My thoughts partake the wildness of the hour,
And I am lost if thou canst not appease.

Friar.
The storm subsides; and far beyond the hills,
The parting thunders roll their dreadful cars
Into the dark abysms of the air
Wherein the tempests sleep.

Lady B.
But I would tell
Who brought them forth, and, with shrill-sounded call,
Rous'd the sail-tearing demons of the wind
To whelm a fated bark. My son, my son,
I saw him in his pinnace sternly seated,
Steer from the cliffs where dens the fatal Elpa:
And then the mantling blackness first began
To wrap the heavens, and o'er the sun's brightface
The hideous cowl of darkness was drawn down.
This day Glenelg espous'd fair Agandel;
And for the scorn of that disdainful maid
I fear my son has feed grim Elpa's power
To mar their hopeful love.

Friar.
Unhappy youth—
But the weak malice of incarnate things
Cannot infect the universal air,
Though envious tongues are potent to do harm—
If more the witch attempts, she mocks your son,
And, but with shame, he will repent his faith
In her malign pretensions—Lady, come;
'Tis near the wonted time of midnight prayer:
Let us into your oriel, and implore
Some blessed interdict upon Beneild,
In the unhallow'd course of his revenge.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Cave.—a fire in the middle.
Marina and Agandel.
Agandel.
Ah me! how cold, how very cold thy hand!
Come to the fire and chafe thyself, sweet maid!

Marina.
No; let me sit here where the humid air
Blows fresh and genial from the foamy sea;
The nimble glancing of these spray-like flames
Afflicts my dim eyes with a prickling ache,
And when I prove the thirsty sense of heat,
A drowsy petulance benumbs my wits
And lays me languishing with strange disease.

Agandel.
Thou art, indeed, a strange and wayward thing,
To take such pleasure in the stormy shower,
And in a night so dark and dire as this
To dare the furious tossings of the sea!

Marina.
And hast not thou enjoyment in the waves?—
How was it, then, that in the furious surf
I found thee floating with the weltering weeds?

Agandel.
Alas! thou wak'st in me the sense of woe!—
I was this morning wedded to Glenelg;
And as we, from Iona's holy isle,
Steer'd to his castle, the perfidious winds
With sudden fury from our destin'd course,
By roaring Corry-vraken drove us here.

Marina.
I thought that thou wast of the sea-born race:
Caluthan, in whose cavern we now sit,
Told me my mother dwelt deep in the waves;
But that, like him, my sire liv'd on the shore:
And I did think when I beheld thy face,
So mild, so pale, so beauteous, and benign,
That thou wert of the gentle mermaid's kin.

Agandel.
Ah me! what art thou, if not human born?

Marina.
Come, sit thee down, nor look so strange at me;
Thou art not now so beauteous as before,
But wan and sickly, like the frighten'd youth
That sought to kiss me, but uncouthly fled,
When on my breast he laid his eager hand.
'Twas when the sea was sleeping and serene,
As I lay basking on the sandy shore,
This garb thrown by, which ever I assume
When old Caluthan bids me shelter here,
Came rough sea creatures from their floating shell,
And leapt on land, where presently they doff'd
Their strange attire and dash'd into the sea:
I, who such mischievous and noisy things
Had never seen, drew near to look at them;
Their forms were like Caluthan's, but so gay,
So rife with frolic, that my heart grew glad
To see how they did wanton in the waves.
They saw me as I sat upon the beach,
And laugh'd and beckon'd for me to approach,
And I did smile to them and beckon back:
Then came they all, and one of them, the youth,
Embraced me round with rude and eager grasp:
But in the instant starting fearful from me,
He sought the shore and with his brothers fled
Back to their parent shell, which spread its arms,
And plying swiftly, speeded out to sea.—
But hark, how sweetly the shrill-singing wind
Joins the hoarse cadence of the numerous waves
Loud sounding on the shore, while soft between
The nimble rain-drops tinkle in the pools
And patter on the ground.—Come forth with me,
And bare thy bosom to the lavish shower.
Still, when the rainy-winged western blast
Pursues the shadows of the flying clouds
Down the steep mountain and across the main,
I feel delighted as the watry gems
With cooling freshness trickle on my breast;
Nay, if thou wilt not come, but shrink and gaze,
So pale and timidly, stay by the hearth
And pile these faggots, that it may be bright
When old Caluthan from his walk returns.
[Exit Marina.

Agandel.
Ah hapless me, what destiny is mine!
Oft have I heard that luring mermaids dwell
Within the wave-hid caverns of this isle,
And surely she is one. And yet, methinks,
It is a creature lovely and serene;
Born without gall and fram'd to pleasant fancies,
Else had it not to this gay grotto brought me,
But rather in some dark unfathom'd cave
Where only dreadful forms with grasping fangs
And wide red throats of yawning horror come,
Made me the dainty of some monstrous feast.
Protect me, gods! what haggard sprite art thou!
O my Glenelg!—

[Enter Glenelg, Caluthan, and Ronaldsay.]
Glenelg.
Are not my eyes enchanted
By some gay vapor which the tricking elves
That haunt these rocks have painted with her form!
It is, it is my Agandel herself.
Art thou again created to my hopes!
O I have mourn'd thee perish'd in the deep.
Be not afraid; this venerable sage
Saved me from death and gives me heavenly joy;
The joy of meeting in unalter'd beauty
With those we love whom we have wept as lost—
The bliss of meeting thee. But tell me, sweet,
By what good miracle wast thou preserv'd?
For when I found the sudden sweeping blast
Had shifted round, and the white-crested waves
Drove white and crowding like a flock to fold,
Where I had left our fated vessel moor'd,
I hastened from my ramble on the hill
And saw her from her faithless anchor drive
Against the cliffs, and soon beheld the wreck
And scattered tackle floating wide and torn.
At such a sight how could my heart but fail;
How could I but deplore thee perished there.

Agandel.
And I had perish'd, but my shrieks and cries
Brought a fair creature that stood on the strand,
And she rescu'd me as I floating toss'd
Upon the weltering wreck and foaming brine.

Caluthan.
It was Marina—I have taught the nymph
What precious freight of parents and of sons
The stately ship and skimming pinnace bear,
And what sad woe and chill penurious hearths
The winter's storm makes in the sailor's home.
Hark! what was that?

Glenelg.
A match-lock fired at hand.

[Enter Marina.]
Marina.
Look, I am hurt—see how the blood flows here!

Agandel.
What cruel hand hath done this murderous deed?

Marina.
As I was sitting on the shore, surveying
The morning's eye-beam glancing o'er the waves,
Another stranger with unhappy looks
Came softly to me, and with flash of fire,
Like the cloud-mantled thunder, pierc'd my heart.
[Enter Beneild.]
Ah, here he comes—Why didst thou me this harm?

Beneild.
O Agandel, what have I done for thee?

Glenelg.
And did'st thou mean the fatal ball for her?

Beneild.
No, no, Glenelg.

Agandel.
Alas! the mermaid faints!

Marina.
My eyes fall drowsy, and I needs must rest:
But I grow cold, and would, if I were able,
Resist this numbing sleep. (dies.)


Agandel.
O she is dead!
Thought'st thou, Beneild, that I could love the man
Who in his bosom had the heart to slay
This gentle creature!

Beneild.
'Twas the Witch seduced me,

Agandel.
Then is this sin but sequel to ill thoughts;
Or wherefore dealt'st thou in deceitful spells?
O, he that seeks to wield unholy power,
Is curs'd by Nature to perform ill deeds.