I shake the state!

I-What have I on earth

But these two hands?

Must I not dig or starve ?

Come back! I had forgot. My memory dies,

I think, by the hour.

Who sups with us to-night?

Let all be of the rarest,-spare no cost.

If 'tis our last;-it may be-let us sink
In sumptuous ruin, with wonderers round us!
Our funeral pile shall send up amber smokes;
We'll burn in myrrh, or―blood!

SELECTION XXII.

DOUGLAS-RABY.--Moore.

Douglas. Oh jealousy, thou aggregate of woes!
Were there no hell, thy torments would create one.
But yet she may be guiltless-may? she must.
How beautiful she looked! pernicious beauty!
Yet innocent as bright seemed the sweet blush
That mantled on her cheek. But not for me,
But not for me, those breathing roses blow!
And then she wept-What! can I bear her tears?
Well let her weep-her tears are for another:
Oh, did they fall for me, to dry their streams
I'd drain the choicest blood that feeds this heart,
Nor think the drops I shed were half so precious. (H
in a musing posture. Enter Lord Raby.)
Raby. Sure I mistake-am I in Raby Castle?
Impossible; that was the seat of smiles;
And cheerfulness and joy were household gods.
I used to scatter pleasures when I came,
And every servant shared his lord's delight;
But now suspicion and distrust dwell here,
And discontent maintains a sullen sway.

Where is the smile unfeigned, the jovial welcome,
Which cheered the sad, beguiled the pilgrim's pain,
And made dependency forget its bonds?
Where is the ancient, hospitable hall,

Whose vaulted roof once rung with harmless mirth,
Where every passing stranger was a guest,
And every guest a friend? I fear me much,
If once our nobles scorn their rural seats,
Their rural greatness, and their vassals' love,
Freedom and English grandeur are no more.

Dou.

(Aavancing.) My lord, you are welcome

Raby. Sir, I trust I am;

But yet methinks I shall not feel I'm welcome
Till my Elwina bless me with her smiles;
She was not wont with lingering step to meet me,
Or greet my coming with a cold embrace;
Now, I extend my longing arms in vain :
My child, my darling, does not come to fill them.
Oh, they were happy days, when she would fly
To meet me from the camp, or from the chase,
And with her fondness overpay my toils!
How eager would her tender hands embrace
The ponderous armor from my war-worn limbs,
And pluck the helmet which opposed her kiss!

Dou. Oh, sweet delights, that never must be mine!
Raby. What do I hear?

Dou. Nothing: inquire no farther.

Raby. My lord, if you respect an old man's peace, If e'er you doted on my much loved child, As 'tis most sure you made me think you did, Then, by the pangs which you may one day feel, When you, like me, shall be a fond, fond father, And tremble for the treasure of your age,

Tell me what this alarming silence means?

You sigh, you do not speak, nay more, you hear not;
Your laboring soul turns inward on itself,

As there were nothing but your own sad thoughts
Deserved regard. Does my child live?

Dou. She does.

Raby. To bless her father!

Dou. And to curse her husband!

Raby. Ah! have a care, my lord, I'm not so oldDou. Nor I so base, that I should tamely bear it; Nor am I so inured to infamy,

That I can say, without a burning blush,

She lives to be my curse!

Raby. How's this?

Dou. I thought

The lily opening to the heaven's soft dews,

Was not so fragrant, and was not so chaste.

Raby. Has she proved otherwise? I'll not believe it. Who has traduced my sweet, my innocent child?

Yet she's too good to escape calumnious hands.

I know that slander loves a lofty mark ·

.

It saw her soar a flight above her fellows,

And hurled its arrow to her glorious height,
To reach her heart, and bring her to the ground.
Dou. Had the harsh tongue of slander so presumed,
My vengeance had not been of that slow sort

To need a prompter; nor shall any arm,

No, not a father's, dare dispute with mine,
The privilege to die in her defense.
None dares accuse Elwina but-
Raby. But who?

Dou.

But Douglas.

Raby. (Puts his hand to his sword.) You?
Oh, spare my age's weakness!

You do not know what 'tis to be a father;
You do not know, or you would pity me,

The thousand tender throbs, the nameless feelings,
The dread to ask, and yet the wish to know,
When we adore and fear; but wherefore fear?
Does not the blood of Raby fill her veins?
Dou. Percy;-knowest thou that name?
Raby. How? What of Percy?

Dou. He loves Elwina, and my curses on him!
He is beloved again.

Raby. I'm on the rack!

Dou.

Not the two Theban brothers bore each other
Such deep, deadly hate as I and Percy.
Raby. But tell me of my child.

Dou. (Not minding him.) As I and Percy!
When at the marriage rites, Oh rites accursed!
I seized her trembling hand, she started back,
Cold horror thrilled her veins, her tears flowed fast.
Fool that I was, I thought 'twas maiden fear:
Dull, doting ignorance: beneath those terrors,
Hatred for me, and love for Percy lurked.
Raby. What proof of guilt is this?
Dou. E'er since our marriage,

Our days have still been cold and joyless all;
Painful restraint, and hatred ill disguised,
Her sole return for my waste of fondness.
This very morn I told her 'twas your will
She should repair to court, with all those graces,
Which first subdued my soul, and still enslave it.
She begged to stay behind in Raby Castle,
For courts and cities had no charms for her.
Curse my blind love! I was again insnared,
And doted on the sweetness which deceived me,

Just at the hour she thought I should be absent,
For chance could ne'er have timed their guilt so well,
Arrived young Harcourt, one of Percy's knights,
Strictly enjoined to speak to none but her;
I seized the miscreant: hitherto he's silent;
But tortures soon shall force him to confess.

Raby. Percy is absent.-They have never met.
Dou. At what a feeble hold you grasp for succor!
Will it content me that her person's pure?
No, if her alien heart dotes on another,
She is unchaste, were not that other Percy.
Let vulgar spirits basely wait for proof,
She loves another-'tis enough for Douglas.
Raby. Be patient.

Dou. Be a tame convenient husband,
And meanly wait for circumstantial guilt?
No-I am nice as the first Cæsar was,
And start at bare suspicion. (Going.)
Raby. (Holding him.) Douglas, hear me :
Thou hast named a Roman husband; if she's false,
I mean to prove a Roman father.

SELECTION XXIII.

VERNER-ALBERT-TELL.-Knowles.

Verner. Ah! Albert!

What have

you there?

Albert.

Ver.

My bow and arrows, Verner.

When will you use them like your father, boy?

Alb. Sometime, I hope.

Ver. You brag! There's not an archer

In all Helvetia can compare with him.

Alb. But I'm his son: and when I am a man,

may be like him. Verner, do I brag,

To think I sometime may be like my father?

If so, then is it he that teaches me;

For, ever as I wonder at his skill,

He calls me boy, and says I must do more
Ere I become a man.

Ver. May you be such

A man as he-if heaven wills, better-I'll

Not quarrel with its work; yet 'twill content me
If you are only such a man.

Alb. I'll show you

How I can shoot. (Goes out to fix the mark.)

Ver. Nestling as he is, he is the making of a bird Will own no cowering wing.

(Re-enter Albert.)

Alb. Now, Verner, look! (Shoots.) There's within An inch!

Ver. Oh fy! it wants a hand.

Alb. A hand's

(Exit Verner.)

An inch for me. I'll hit it yet. Now for it! (While Albert continues to shoot, Tell enters and watches him some time, in silence.)

Tell. That's scarce a miss that comes so near the mark! Well aimed, young archer! With what ease he bends The bow! To see those sinews, who'd believe

Such strength did lodge in them? That little arm,

His mother's palm can span, may help, anon,
To pull a sinewy tyrant from his seat,

And from their chains a prostrate people lift
To liberty. I'd be content to die,

Living to see that day! What, Albert!
Alb. Ah!

My father!

Too fast. (Albert continues shooting.)
Bring it slowly to the eye.-You've missed.
How often have you hit the mark to-day?
Alb. Not once, yet.

Tell. You're not steady. I perceived
You wavered now.

Stand firm. Let every limb

Be braced as marble, and as motionless.
Stand like the sculptor's statue, on the gate
Of Altorf, that looks life, yet neither breathes
Nor stirs. (Albert shoots.) That's better!
See well the mark. Rivet your eye to it!
There let it stick, fast as the arrow would,
Could you but send it there. (Albert shoots.)
You've missed again! How would you fare,
Suppose a wolf should cross your path, and you
Alone, with but your bow, and only time
To fix a single arrow? "Twould not do
To miss the wolf! You said, the other day,
Were you a man, you'd not let Gesler live-
'Twas easy to say that. Suppose you, now,
Your life or his depended on that shot!-
Take care! That's Gesler!-Now for liberty!

Right to the tyrant's heart! (Hits the mark.) Well done my boy!
Come here. How early were you up?