University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

—The garden.
[Philip and Clara in front of the scene. Francis and Isabella in the back, walking together and talking.]
Philip.
Is the rose faded, that you wear it not—
The rose I gave you?

Clara.
Had I worn the rose,
It would have faded ere to-morrow's dawn.

Philip.
But had I seen the rose upon your breast
For one short hour, it would have given me joy.

Clara.
But sure, its absence cannot give you pain.

Philip.
The estimation of the gift doth oft
Denote the giver's value.

Clara.
And can Philip
Doubt my regard for him?

Philip.
Perhaps I doubt
Its nature, Clara. Yet a word from you
Can set my heart at rest. Oh, speak it then!
Say, shall this hand— You turn yourself away:
I am indeed unworthy; for I ask
A priceless jewel, and can offer nothing
But the devotion of a simple heart.

Clara.
Philip, I will be frank, for you deserve it;
My fears are for my own unworthiness;
And I am loth to bind your honest truth
To pledges that you might repent hereafter.
I pray you, therefore, think no more of this:
There are too many obstacles.

Philip.
Oh, no!
All are removed. My father gives consent;
And Francis meets me with a brother's love.
A word of sweet assurance from your lips
Is all I need to bless me.

Clara.
Do not ask it:
I dare not link another's fate with mine.

Philip.
You dare not?

Clara.
Something tells me, 'twould be wrong.
Ours is a house in which affliction reigns:
My father living, (as you partly know,
Or never had the mention pass'd my lips,)
It was a wretched scene of jarring strife:
He died, and it hath been the will of Heaven
To send us nothing but a change of trouble.
Bethink you; 'tis a maxim old and wise,
Never to seek alliance with misfortune.

Philip.
The maxim likes not me; for I would rather
Share Clara's sorrow than another's joy.
But courage! Bright expectancies are yours,
And 'tis not meet that past calamity
Should darken present joy and future hope.

Clara.
They who have drunk too deep of sorrow's cup
Lose their belief in human happiness.

Philip.
You are too young to look so gloomily
Upon your coming years. You must not, Clara.

[They walk on. Francis and Isabella come forward.]
Isabella.
How often we have play'd together here,
When we were children. Those were happy times.

Francis.
They were; and they will never come again.

Isabella.
They never will. Yet when I think of them,
I can foresee still happier days to come.

Francis.
What can renew that freshness of the heart,
That withers by contagion of the world?
What can restore the bloom of infancy,
So charming to behold, so quick to perish?

Isabella.
But when the blossoms fall, the fruits appear,
And show their splendours to the golden sun.
The child that knows no stain, is not more pure,
Nor yet more lovely in the eye of Heaven,
Than is the manly soul, whose grosser parts
The practice of high virtue hath refined.
And all in childhood is not purity:
Vice oft betrays itself in early years:
Orlando from a child was mean and spiteful.

Francis.
Talk not of him.

Isabella.
I well remember once,
Upon this lawn we play'd at blindman's-buff,
He tore my frock, and pushed me, and was rude;
You, in an instant—

Francis.
Isabel, no more!

Isabella.
From that time forth he ever hated you,
And I have seen him scowl—

Francis.
No more of him!
I cannot bear it.

Isabella.
Well, be calm: I will not.
Past injuries are buried in the grave;
And I was foolish to remind you of them.
Come see the little jessamine you planted,
How it has thriven. I have water'd it
Day after day, and train'd it with my hand,
Twining it round the oaken trellis-work,
Which now it clasps with lover-like embrace,
And whitens with a galaxy of flowers.

[They walk on. Philip and Clara come forward.]
Philip.
He is the hero of her waking dreams:
She loves him with a faith devout and holy,
As maidens loved their knights in olden time.
Be not offended—but I sometimes wish
You had a spark of Isabel's romance.

Clara.
Alas! we live not in a golden age:
The stern necessities of life forbid us
To put our faith in dreams.

Philip.
I stand reproved:
The wisdom that is capable to bear
The ills of life, and to perform its duties,
Is better than romance. I should have wish'd
That Isabella more resembled you.

Clara.
Nay, wrong not Isabel. She hath a courage
Would not desert her in the trying hour.
I would not have you misinterpret me:
There is a morbid fancy, which creates
And fashions for its own idolatry
Things that in nature have no place or meaning:
Call it romance or what you please—the mind
Infected with such idle fantasy
Is fitted ill for uses of the world.
But that imaginative lofty power,
Which in the form of things material sees
Divine relations, meanings, influences,
And lifts itself above this mortal sphere
To commune with the pure and the eternal,
Is reason's kin and virtue's best ally,
Prompting the soul to noble thought and deed,
Giving a charm to that which else were dull
And irksome in the doing. Sure I am,
Your sister hath a spark of this in her.

Philip.
I never am with you, but what I learn
Lessons of truth and wisdom.

Clara.
Nay: 'tis you
That draw me out, suggesting by a hint
What I express in over-many words.

Philip.
What? Clara turn'd a flatterer!

[They walk on. Francis and Isabella come forward.]
Francis.
Would you not like to travel, Isabel,
In foreign climes? In France, and Switzerland?

Isabella.
Oh, yes; and see the places I have read of,
But yet can scarcely picture in my mind.

Francis.
Could we explore some unfrequented spot,
Far from the haunts of men, and be alone!

Isabella.
I should not think it solitude with you.

Francis.
'Twould give me strange delight, to visit scenes
Where nature is most wild and terrible;
Deserts and mountains, glaciers, precipices,
That scare the young chamois, and over which
The strong-winged eagle trembles as he flies:
To hear the prison'd thunder moaning
In hollow clefts, with nought to answer it
But its own echo; or perchance to stand
Upon the summit of some cloudy crag,
And view the tempest-driven avalanche
Plunge in the vale below. All this we'll see.

Isabella.
Or it may be, on blue Geneva's lake
Some light-oar'd skiff, with merry flashing blade,
Shall waft us o'er the wave at eventide;
And while the moon lies mirror'd in the deep,
And giant Alpine shadows kiss the shore,
I'll take my lute, and softly to the tune
Of some remember'd song I'll touch the strings,
And charm the night with music.

Francis.
Isabel!

Isabella.
And when we cross to Italy's fair land,
With what devotion we should stand together
Amid the ruins of majestic Rome!
How charming over shores and plains to wander,
Where every fountain, every spot of ground
Is hallow'd by some classic memory:
Sweet Como, and the falls of Tivoli,
And piny waving slopes of Apennine,
And sunny Naples, with her rock and bay.

Francis.
We'll mount the crater of Vesuvius,
And think upon a time, when all the rock
Heav'd with convulsive throes, till from its womb
Wrapt in black clouds upsprang the monster-birth,
Choking the air, and mingling earth with heaven;
As if the might of huge Enceladus
Had risen from the grave, to wage rebellion
Against eternal Jove; then, like a storm
Of sulphurous hail shot from the angry gods,
It fell in burning floods upon the earth,
And laid whole towns in ashes.

Isabella.
I would fain
Dwell on the soft and joyous parts of nature.

[Philip and Clara come forward.]
Philip.
We've come to ask a favour, Isabel—
[He puts a guitar in her hand.]
A song of other days.

Clara.
Do sing us one.

Isabella.
[She sings.]

[A noise is heard without. Enter in haste and alarm, Mr. Egerton, followed by two officers of justice.]
Philip.
Who are these men?

Officer.
(Producing a warrant, and going up to Francis.)
You are our prisoner, sir.

Francis.
For what? Upon what charge?

Officer.
We have a warrant
To apprehend you on a charge of murder.

Isabella.
Oh, no! impossible! He's innocent!

[She is about to rush forward towards Francis, but is withheld by her father. Clara has grasped the arm of Philip, and looks on in terror.]
Francis,
(with a forced effort.)
Be not alarm'd. This is some new device,
Contrived by Walter and my enemies:
But I shall disconcert their wicked schemes.
Take note; I yield me up without demur
Unto the lawful warrant of these men.
'Tis nothing, dearest friends; but I must hence
To clear the mist which their foul calumnies
Have gather'd round me. All will soon be well.