University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

The Cave of Merlin.
The Sage is discovered asleep, dressed in a frock of sackcloth, and a white cap on his head; a book lying open before him, with great red characters, and a dim lamp burning beside it.)
Enter Sir John Drummond.
Drum.
Hail to the central habitant, who dwells
In this dread, hallow'd, subterranean home,
Sacred to that which human power transcends!—
Hail to thee, mighty Merlin!—
What!—Asleep!
And ope before him that mysterious book
Which human eye hath never look't upon!
I'll have one peep, though it should freeze my blood.
(He goes to the book, looks at it, then starts, holds his head, and returns to the front of the stage.)
Ah! what is this? methought one single glance
Of these red characters beam'd on my soul
With such refulgence, its whole powers were dazzled;
Its latent principles were waked anew,
Expanded like the halo of the moon
When wading from the dark and folding cloud,
And nigh had melted from my frame for ever!—
(Pause.)
Say that I took that wondrous book a while;
I should be wise as he,—haply much wiser!
'Tis a great prize!—I would not pilfer aught;
But knowledge is a treasure that should charm
All bars that circumscribe it into air.
Say, that no other way remains but this,
Which ever can reveal to mortal man
The mysteries of that book—all argument
Lags impotent!—Haply a week, a day,
May well suffice to open stores of wisdom
Yet seal'd from man—And such another chance
Ne'er to recur again!—I'll take the book.

(As Drummond retires with the Book, thunder and lightning, and shades, like spirits, are seen gliding at the further end of the cave; and a voice is heard in a slow lamentable tone.)
Voice.
Woe be to thee, man, that ever thou wast born!

(Pause. Then groans and low tones of music heard.)
Voice.
(As before.)
Awake!—awake!—O, Merlin awake!
Thou son of a thousand years!

(Groans and tones of music are again heard.)
Enter Crawford.
Cra.
Heavens, what a dreadful coil! Hell has been here!
I heard strange sounds; and lo! a horseman past,
In mad and furious guise, away. The sage
Is fast asleep.—Ho! Merlin, rouse thyself;
The habitants of hell and earth are mix'd
In tournament. Arise, and make division!

Mer.
(Waking.)
Out on thee, knight! What seek'st thou here? Begone.
I pity all thy follies, but to-night
I hold no talk with thy preposterous race.
I know thee; thou art slave unto a woman;—
That thing made up of all the adverse grains
Of jarring elements and steams of hell;—
And thou art come to prate of her to me!—
I say, begone!

Cra.
Great prophet! I'm an injured man, and came
To thee for insight and for counsel.

Mer.
Injured!—By whom?

Cra.
By some mysterious strangers;
But chiefly by a woman, whom I love.

Mer.
Ay, by a woman!—Injured by a woman!
I knew it.—It is very well with thee!
The man who takes that scorpion to his bosom,
Deserves the worst she can inflict.—Begone!

Cra.
I say I will not hence, till thou unfold
The book of fate, and tell me all my doom.

Mer.
(Looking, misses the Book.)
Where is my book?—Wretch! hast thou touch'd that book?

Cra.
I touch'd it not: but ere I enter'd here
I heard unearthly voices, and I saw
A knight, with book in's arms, pass on so swift,
That he outrode the whirlwind, and brought back
The passing gale in's face. Adown the glen
His furious courser dash'd the pebbled path
So fierce, it seem'd to rain red fire around him,
And spatter from the earth.—Your book is gone!

Mer.
Gone! saidst thou? Woe, then, to the hapless man;
And woe to all that touch it!—Woe,—woe,—woe!
Nature will soon be in a stayless uproar,
And all the elements in roaring war.
Oh! there are openings in that volume, knight,
That mortal may not look upon and live!

Cra.
How, then, dost thou?

Mer.
Think'st thou the soul that animates this frame
Is mortal; or came to this world with me?
Ah, no! when first these mysteries I learn'd,
That melted from its earthly tenement,
And left this mould a moving, gaping corpse.

Cra.
O dreadful! dreadful!

Mer.
Seven days I lay or stalk'd in ghastly guise,
Void of all sense, of feeling, or of mind;—
My moveless visage held its ideot gaze,
And my two eyes, like globes of burnish'd glass,
Flung no reflected image inwardly;
They would not wink even in the noon-day sun.

Cra.
How was this vacancy of mind supplied?

Mer.
The spirit that now directs this faded form,
Lived ere the sun or stars of heaven were lighted;
Ere the broad world was in the centre fix'd
Of yon great frame that ever spins around it,
Wheel'd by the polar angels. She has journey'd
O'er the unpaled and diamond floors of heaven;
Has climb'd the steep brows of the summer moon,
To mark her influence on things below
Skimm'd o'er her glossy seas, dream'd in her shades,
Wing'd the blue void, and sung the hymns of God
On yon green glimmering star.

Cra.
Sire, my heart quakes, and all my blood runs cold,
Hearing thy words.—That awful book!—

Mer.
I'll tell thee, knight,
Some pages in that book, if read by man
Unused to guard with spell, will wake the dead!
Yes, you shall see the new-swollen corpses rise;
Unbowell'd forms in bloated winding sheets,
And ribbed skeletons, shall join the array,
With nerveless joints all clattering to the night!
Even the dark aisle and churchyard ground shall stir,
Heaving, like earthquake, with the struggling throes
Of crumbling bones and congregated dust!
(Moans, and tones of music are heard.)
O God! the book is open'd!
(Pause.)
One other page shall rend the firmament.
(Loud thunder, with lightning.)
The tumult spreads amain!—What shall be done?
Where are my lingering spirits?—One leaf more,
And he that looks shall fall a senseless mass;
And yet that mass have motion!
(Loud groans, and tones of music are heard.)
'Tis done! he'll look no more! O hapless man!—
Good knight, if thou hast pity in thy heart,
Or sett'st at aught the miseries of men,
Conduct me through this awful night, that I
That relic may regain.

Cra.
With thee I fear not;
For thou can'st quell the boisterous elements:
But such a night by man was never braved!

(Exeunt.)