Christ and the saints, be merciful unto me! Yet why should I fear death? What is it to die? To leave all disappointment, care, and sorrow, To leave all falsehood, treachery, and unkindness, All ignominy, suffering, and despair, And be at rest for ever! Oh, dull heart, Be of good cheer! When thou shalt cease to beat, Then shalt thou cease to suffer and complain! Under the tent-like trees! A woodland nymph! Do not betray thyself too soon. Vict. (disguising his voice.) Hist! Gipsy! Prec. (aside with emotion.) That voice! That voice from heaven! Oh, speak again! Who is it calls? Vict. Prec. (aside.) A friend. "Tis he! "Tis he! I thank thee, Heaven, that thou hast heard my prayer, And sent me this protector! Now be strong, Be strong, my heart! I must dissemble here.False friend or true? Vict. Fear not come hither. tunes? A true friend to the true! So; can you tell for Tell me a better fortune for my money; Prec. How could you do it? Vict. I never loved a maid; For she I loved was then a maid no more. A little bird in the air There, take back your gold! Whispered the secret. Prec. Your hand is cold, like a deceiver's hand! Vict. (aside.) How like an angel's is the tongue of woman, When pleading in another's cause her own !——— Shall that be taken! Vict. (Tries to take the ring.) No; never from my hand Why, 'tis but a ring. I'll give it back to you; or, if I keep it, Vict. A whim, and nothing more. I would fain keep it I will not part with it, even when I die: Vict. Vict. (aside.) Be still, my swelling heart! one moment, still! Why, 'tis the folly of a love-sick girl. Prec. To utter such a fiendish lie! Vict. Oh, you will not dare Not dare? Look in my face, and say if there is aught I have not dared, would not dare for thee! (She rushes into his arms.) Prec. "Tis thou! 'tis thou! Yes: yes; my heart's elected My dearest-dear Victorian! my soul's heaven! Where hast thou been so long? Why didst thou leave me? Vict. Ask me not now, my dearest Preciosa. I pray thee, do no chide me! Prec. I should have perished here among these Gipsies. Vict. Forgive me, sweet, for what I made thee suffer. Think'st thou this heart could feel a moment's speak on! Let me but hear thy voice, and I am happy; (They walk aside.) dent, And this sweet Gipsy lass, fair Preciosa! mas. Chispa (within). What ho! the Gipsies ho! Beltran Cruzado! Halloo! halloo ! halloo! halloo! (Enters booted, with a Vict. Why such a fearful din? robbed? whip and lantern.) What now? Hast thou been Chispa. Ay, robbed and murdered; and good evening to you, My worthy masters. Viet. Speak: what brings thee here? Chispa (to PRECIOSA). Good news from Court; good news! Beltran Cruzado, The Count of the Cales is not your father, Chispa. His body is in Segovia, His soul is in Madrid. Prec. Is this a dream? Oh, if it be a dream. Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet! Repeat thy story! Say I'm not deceived! Say that I do not dreamn! I am awake; This is the Gipsy camp: this is Victorian, And this his friend, Hypolito! Speak! speak! Let me not wake and find it all a dream! Vict. It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream, A blissful certainty, a vision bright Of that rare happiness, which even on earth Heaven gives to those it loves. Now art thou rich, As thou wast ever beautiful and good; Prec. (giving him her hand.) I have still Chispa (aside). And I have two to take; I've heard my grandmother say, that Heaven gives almonds To those who have no teeth. That's nuts to crack. I've teeth to spare, but where shall I find almonds? Vict. What more of this strange story? Chispa. Nothing more, Your friend, Don Carios, is now at the village Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde, The proofs of what I tell you. The old hag, Who stole you in your childhood. has confessed; And probably they'll hang her for the crime, To make the celebration more complete. Vict. No; let it be a day of general joy; Fortune comes well to all. that comes not late. Now let us join Don Carlos. Hyp. So farewell, The student's wandering life! Sweet serenades, Sung under ladies' windows in the night, And all that makes vacation beautiful! To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcalá, To you, ye radiant visions of romance, Written in books, but here surpassed by truth, The Bachelor Hypolito returns, And leaves the Gipsy with the Spanish Student. Monk. Santa Maria! Come with me to San Monk. An Agnus Dei and my benediction. SONG. Worn with speed is my good steed, With the white star in thy forehead! Ay, jaleo! They cross our track. rest. See, Preciosa, see how all about us Prec. Most beautiful, indeed! Hyp. Most wonderful! And in the vale below, Where yonder steeples flash like lifted halberds, San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries, Sends up a salutation to the morn, As if an army smote their brazen shields, Prec. Segovia ? And which way lies Vict. At a great distance yonder. Dost shou not see it? Prec. No. I do not see it. And an Alcázar, builded by the Moors. Against all stress of accident, as, in The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide. Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains, And there were wrecked and perished in the sea! (She weeps) Vict. O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear un- Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate! Prec. (They descend the pass. CHISPA remains behind.) Chispa. I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus do I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may hapnen? Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald, that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite! [Erit. (A pause. Then enter BARTOLOME wildly, as if in pursuit, with a carbine in his hand.) Bart. They passed this way! I hear their horses' hoofs! Yonder I see them! Come, sweet caramillo, Vict. The merest flaw that denotes the hori- This serenade shall be the Ginsy's last! zon's edge. There, yonder! Hyp, 'Tis a notable old town, Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct, (Fires down the pass.) Ha ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo! Well whistled!-I have missed her!--O my God! (The shot is returned. BARTOLOME falls.) BIRDS OF PASSAGE. Come i gru van cantando lor lai -DANTE. PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. OF Prometheus, how undaunted Of that flight through heavenly portals, Of the theft and the transmission Of the fire of the Immortals! First the deed of noble daring. Born of heavenward aspiration, Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning. All this toil for human culture? O'er life's barren crags the vulture? By defeat and exile maddened; Thus were Milton and Cervantes, Nature's priests and Corybantes, By affliction touched and saddened. That around their memories cluster, All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chaunted; Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, With the rapture of creating! Ah, Prometheus; heaven-scaling! Round the cloudy crags Caucasian! All the hearts of men for ever; Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A iadder. if we will but tread And all occasions of excess; The longing for ignoble things: The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill, all evil deeds, That have their root in thoughts of ill; The action of the nobler will;-- The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, The heights by great men reached and kept With shoulders bent and downcast eyes To something nobler we attain. THE PHANTOM SHIP. Were heavy with good men's prayers. And the ships that came from England, That the Lord would let them hear, He had done with friends so dear. And at last their prayers were answered:It was in the month of June, An hour before the sunset Of a windy afternoon, When steadily steering landward, And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, On she came, with a cloud of canvas, Then fell her straining topmasts. And her sails were loosened and lifted, And the masts with all their rigging, And the hulk dilated and vanished, And the people who saw this marvel That this was the mould of their vessel, And the pastor of the village Gave thanks to God in prayer, That, to quiet their troubled spirits, He had sent this Ship of Air. THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. A MIST was driving down the British Channel, The day was just begun, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, Streamed the red autumn sun. Each answering each, with morning salutations, That all was weli. And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No morning gun from the black forts embrasure, Awaken with its call! No more, surveying with an eye impartial Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, He did not pause to parley or dissemble, Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble And groan from shore to shore. Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited, Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated HAUNTED HOUSES. ALL houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide. With feet that make no sound upon the floors. We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro. There are more guests at table, than the hosts Invited; the illuminated hall Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, The stranger at my fireside cannot see hands, And hold in mortmain still their old estates. |