University of Virginia Library

SCENE VIII.

—Evening. A retired cove of the seashore.
Enter Gemma.
Gem.
Come to me, Astrid, for my heart is broken.

Enter Astrid from the sea.
Ast.
Alas, poor child!

Gem.
Oh, I can neither live
Nor die without his pardon! Let me see him!
Perhaps he is not dead!

Ast.
Would I might say so!
He is dead indeed—e'en now his body floats
Away to those cold seas that first he loved!
Yet haply, oh, my Gemma! ere we part,
I yet may bathe those wild glazed eyes of thine
In sweeter, softer tears more like to joy.
But tell me first—dost thou still love Lorenzo?

Gem.
All he has been to me is so gone by,
I neither love nor hate him—he is nothing.
Oh, Harold! Harold! Harold! How the life
I had forgotten, rises up again
In all its cruel, sweet reality!
No more a child, I look back to the days
When he was made so happy by my love,
Although I never gave him back, alas!
The thousandth part of what he gave to me—
For oh! through all the years we lived together,
I cannot call back one luxurious memory
Of words as fond as he would fain have heard—
One such outpouring of the heart as leaves it
In after absence sadly satisfied,
Absolved from sharp contrition for lost time.
And, worst of all, I see unceasingly—
And when I die, and roam abroad to seek,
But never find, his ghost—I still shall see—
Oh, the cold pang that chokes me while I speak!—
His face of pale and uncomplaining pain,
When he turned from me with a broken heart.
I love him now, with all my power of loving,
And never, never, never can assuage
This bitter thirst to throw my arms once more
Around his neck, and cry to him for pardon,
And heal all he has suffered by my tears.
And I have killed him—'twas through me he died!
Oh, when was creature half so lost as I?

Ast.
Alas! And what am I? I loved him too,
And now o'er all the blue 'twixt pole and pole,
May seek for him in vain.

Gem.
So then we two
Are desolate and despairing! Help us, God!

Ast.
Despair not yet—I still may comfort thee,
Hast thou but strength of soul—for I can show thee,
Reflected from some form invisible—
If far or near, in earth, or out of it,
Or in what essence framed, I cannot tell thee—
Here in this mirror him thou weep'st for so.
He too shall look on thee as thou on him—
So shall you meet once more.

Gem.
Show it me, Astrid!
All heaven seems opening on me.

Ast.
Wait, fond heart!
Thou know'st not the conditions. If this blessing,
This solace past all solace, ever yet
Accorded to a mortal's misery,
Thus groaning over the irrevocable,
If this be granted thee, resign thyself
To die, when thou hast had the full fruition
Of thy heart's passionate wish.

Gem.
Let me but see him,
And then die, Astrid.

Ast.
Oh, but yet consider,
My Gemma, all the chances life still offers!
Can beauteous womanhood be at thy years
Blighted for life? Genius omnipotent
In fashioning that outward loveliness—
Granting therein expression to a soul
As lovely—pure and ardent as thine eyes,
Warm as the summer rose upon thy cheek,
Sweet as thy mouth, and graceful as thy hair,
As delicate as this small, pointed hand,
As playful as this music-loving foot—
Oh, sure in giving this, it charmed thy being
All fragile as it is, 'gainst fate itself!
A thousand tempting paths lead up before thee
To different heights, but each into a garden—
The mystery of the future still is thine,
And this but one strain of thy life's whole music!
Wouldst thou but listen on, not close thine ears
To all the rest, how know'st thou through what harmonies
It yet may burst into a song of rapture?

Gem.
Astrid, in pity to a drowning soul,
Stretch out thy hand, and bless me with the face
I long to die for!

Ast.
Must I lose thee, then?
So be it, Harold's darling! Die content—
Look through this mirror—tell me what thou seest.

Gem.
I see mine own face—now it keeps retreating—
And now a distant light......widening and brightening......
And now......'tis Harold! 'Tis himself! Oh, Astrid!
He sees me, and he smiles! Yes, he forgives me.
Oh, might I live on thus, just thus for ever!
Harold, beloved Harold! Speak to me.
Astrid, he seems to hear me—yes, his lips
Move even, but I cannot hear a sound.

Ast.
Oh, passionate martyr! Such is earthly love
That sings for rapture 'mid the funeral fires!

Gem.
Oh, Astrid! Astrid! Is this death? I feel
All in a dizzy dream—and yet so happy!

Mer.
(singing)
Oh, moon! that art bathing tonight in this cove,
Look down on this creature that's dying for love!
With deep dazzling eyes, and with fast ebbing breath—
Like a bride on her mirror, she smiles upon death.
Her heart-beats are numbered—the moments are flying!
All life, love, and beauty—yet dying, yet dying!

Gem.
He beckons with his hand! Will he be there
To meet me, when I go?

Ast.
Alas, alas!
Harold! My Harold! Wait for her yet longer.

Gem.
He has vanished.

[Dies.
Ast.
I have done with earth for ever—
The pain, the pain to love these human creatures!
No more that sweet young voice shall speak to me—
She feels not now my kisses nor my tears!

Mer.
Now her life's love dream is dreamt and over—
Now let earth forget the loved and lover—
Now let all their sisters of the waves
Weep and weave sea-garlands for their graves!
Never let the faithless sons of men
On her innocent beauty gaze again!
Never let a faithless human tear
Drop on her mysterious sepulchre!
With flashing sea-pebbles, with clear-glowing amber,
With weeds of gold, purple, and rose,
In rainbow-like streamers—we'll light up a chamber
For Gemma's soft night of repose,
Where down in the emerald deeps of the sea,
Asleep 'mid the streams of her hair,
She bathed in a luminous twilight shall be
Eternally, changelessly fair.
There, last of his race, shall be laid her sea-king
To rest on his adamant bed—
There his own cast-away flag will we bring
To shadow the stern, sleeping head—
There round our pale queen will we gather and sing,
Every eve, of the dear and the dead.