University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—A spacious balcony of the Palace overlooking the sea. Zilia, Lorenzo, and others assembled watching the storm.
Zil.
How well that like a child she sleeps away
Th' emotions that have shaken so her frame!
This sight would have renewed them. A fair ship,
Now we can see her close.

Lor.
You will soon see her
Still closer.

Zil.
She has not a chance you think?
Those roaring waves play with her as a toy
That the next touch will shatter.

Lor.
Rather call her
A bird that 's spell-bound by a serpent's eye,
Dreading, yet ever drawn towards its fate—
So does that galley strive and strive again,
And yet again rush headlong towards the shore.
I feel as if I were that serpent, mother.

One of the lookers-on.
Just retribution that has made this shore
The doom of Harold. How those ghastly breakers
Gnash their white teeth at him!

Another.
Yet, now to perish—
In the clear light of day—were scarce more fearful
Than to fall slain in battle. To behold
For the last time the faces of our fellows,
Exchange the last of human sympathy—
Gives the soul strength for a sublime regret,
And crowds more life into life's final moment,
Than throbbed in all before. But night draws near—
And death in darkness and in uproar—oh!
The soul must shrink as from the brink of chaos,
And madden with the horror, ere it plunge
Into the gulf of fate.

Another.
And this the end!
On a lea-shore, with tattered sails, to reel—
Like a spent quarry pierced by many a shaft,
Till caught and mangled by triumphant hounds—
That once went flaunting under all her canvass,
To robbery and murder.

Lor.
(to Zilia)
I must begone.

Zil.
One moment—should he yet ride out the storm?

Lor.
He will not—she is half a wreck already.

Zil.
But should he 'scape the ship and reach the land?

Lor.
I go to make provision for that chance.

Zil.
And how dispose of him?

Lor.
There 's but one way.
Men show no mercy to the famished wolf
That creeps in winter howling to their doors.

Zil.
Ah, well!......strong courses mostly are the wisest!
Long as he lives, we cannot feel her safe—
But yet I fear 't will be a grief to her!
It will be hard to make her see the justice......

Lor.
She need not know it—for a time at least.

Zil.
Her thoughts will be engrossed by that event
That 's greatest in the world to girlhood's eyes.
The white mist of the wedding veil will hide
All from her eyes but love.

Lor.
You say she still
Is sleeping?

Zil.
Happily, she is.

Lor.
I leave you then. By night you shall hear of me.