Theo. Blessed powers! she does! How can you frown and hear it?
Her generous soul, first touched by gratitude,
Soon owned a kinder, warmer sympathy.
Soft as the fanning of a turtle's plumes,
The sweet confession met my enraptured ears.
Aust. What can I do? Come near, my Theodore :
Dost thou believe my affection?
Aust. Think what my bosom suffers, when I tell thee, It must not, cannot be.
Theo. My love for Adelaide !
Aust. Deem it delicious poison; dash it from thee: Thy bane is in the cup.
Theo. Oh! bid me rather
Tear out my throbbing heart; I'd think it mercy,
To this unjust, this cruel interdiction.
That proud, unfeeling Narbonne, from his lips
Well might such words have fallen; but thou, my father.—
Aust. And fond, as ever owned that tender name.
Not I, my son, not I prevent this union:
To me it is bitterness to cross thy wish;
But nature, fate, and heaven, all, all forbid it.
We must withdraw where heaven alone can hear us:
Then must thou stretch thy soul's best faculties,
Call every manly principle to steel thee,
And to confirm thy name, secure thy honor,
Make one great sacrifice of love to justice.
XXVI.-FROM THE VESPERS OF PALERMO.-Mrs. Hemans.
MONTALBA-PROCIDA-RAIMOND-FIRST SICILIAN-SECOND
SICILIAN-GUIDO-SICILIANS.
Scene. A chapel, and a monument, on which is laid a sword.
And know you not my story?
Where I have been a wanderer, your deep wrongs
Were numbered with our country's; but the tale
Came only in faint echoes to mine ear.
I would fain hear it now.
Mont. Oh! what lovely dreams
Rose on my spirit, when after long years
Of battle and captivity, I spurred
My good steed homewards. There were tears and smiles,
But all of joy!-And there were bounding steps,
And clinging arms, whose passionate clasp of love
Doth twine so fondly round the warrior's neck,
When his plumed helm is doffed.
Hence, feeble thoughts!
I am sterner now, yet once such dreams were mine!
Raimond. And were they realized?
Mont. Youth! ask me not,
But listen!--I drew near my own fair home;
There was no light along its walls, no sound
Of bugle pealing from the watch tower's height
At my approach, although my trampling steed
Made the earth ring; yet the wide gates were thrown
All open. Then my heart misgave me first,
And on the threshold of my silent hall
I paused in fear. I called-my struggling voice
Gave utterance to my wife's, my children's names;
They answered not-I roused my failing strength,
And wildly rushed within-and they were there.
Rai. And was all well?
Mont. Aye, well! for death is well,
And they were all at rest!—I see them yet,
Pale in their innocent beauty, which had failed
To stay the assassin's arm!
Rai. Oh! righteous heaven!
Who had done this?
Mont. Who!
Proc. Canst thou question, who?
Whom hath the earth to perpetrate such deeds,
In the cold-blooded revelry of crime,
But those whose yoke is on us?
Rai. Man of wo!
What words have pity for despair like thine?
Mont. Pity! fond youth!
Proc. Pity!-For woes like these,
There is no sympathy but vengeance.
Therefore I brought you hither, that your hearts
Might catch the spirit of the scene! Look round!
We are in the awful presence of the dead;
Within yon tomb they sleep, whose gentle blood
Weighs down the murderer's soul.--They sleep! but I
Am wakeful o'er their dust!-I laid my sword,
Without its sheath, on their sepulchral stone,
As on an altar; and the eternal stars,
And heaven, and night, bore witness to my vow,
No more to wield it save in one great cause-
The vengeance of the grave !—And now the hour
Of that atonement comes! (He takes the sword from the tomb.) Rai. My spirit burns!
And my full heart almost to bursting swells.
Oh! for the day of battle!
Proc. Raimond! they
Whose souls are dark with guiltless blood, must die;
But not in battle!
Rai. How, my father!
Proc. No!
Look on that sepulchre, and it will teach
Another lesson. Childless Montalba?
Mont. Call on that desolate father, in the hour
When his revenge is nigh.
Proc. Are we all met?
Sicilians. All, all!
Proc. I knew a young Sicilian, one whose heart
Should be all fire. On that most guilty day,
When with our martyred Conradin, the flower
Of the land's knighthood, perished; he, of whom
I speak, a weeping boy, whose innocent tears
Melted a thousand hearts that dared not aid,
Stood by the scaffold, with extended arms,
Calling upon his father, whose last look
Turned full on him its parting agony.
That father's blood gushed o'er him!-and the boy
Then dried his tears, and with a kindling eye,
And a proud flush on his young cheek, looked up
To the bright heaven.-Doth he remember still
That bitter hour?
Second Sicilian. He bears a sheathless sword!
Call on the orphan when revenge is nigh.
Proc. Thou, too, come forth,
From thine own halls an exile !-Dost thou make
The mountain-fastnesses, thy dwelling still,
While hostile banners, o'er thy rampart walls,
Wave their proud blazonry ?
First Sicilian. Even so. I stood
Last night before my own ancestral towers
An unknown outcast, while the tempest beat
On my bare head-what recked it ?-There was joy
Within, and revelry: the festive lamps
Were streaming from each turret, and gay songs,
In the stranger's tongue made mirth. They little deemed
Who heard their melodies!-but there are thoughts
Best nurtured in the wild; there are dread vows
Known to the mountain-echoes.-Procida!
Call on the outcast when revenge is nigh.
Proc. Our band shows gallantly-but there are men
Who should be with us now, had they not dared.
In some wild moment of festivity
To give their full hearts way, and breathe a wish
For freedom!-and some traitor-it might be
A breeze perchance-bore the forbidden sound
To Eribert-so they must die-unless
Fate, who at times is wayward, should select
Some other victim first!-But have they not.
Brothers or sons amongst us ?
I have a brother, a young high-souled boy,
And beautiful as a sculptor's dream, with brow
That wears, amidst its dark rich curls, the stamp
Of inborn nobleness. In truth, he is
A glorious creature!-But his doom is sealed
With theirs of whom you spoke; and I have knelt,—
Aye, scorn me not! 'twas for his life-I knelt
E'en at the viceroy's feet, and be put on
That heartless laugh of cold malignity
We know so well, and spurned me.--But the stain
Of shame like this, takes blood to wash it off,
And thus it shall be canceled!--Call on me,
When the stern moment of revenge is nigh.
Proc. I call upon thee now! The land's high soul
Is roused, and moving onward, like a breeze,
Or a swift sunbeam kindling nature's hues
To deeper life before it. In his chains,
Te peasant dreams of freedom!--aye, 'tis thus
Oppression fans the imperishable flame
With most unconscious hands.—
When slavery's cup
O'erflows its bounds, the creeping poison, meant
To dull our senses, through each burning vein
Pours fever, lending a delirious strength
To burst man's fetters-and they shall be burst!
Now, before
The majesty of yon pure heaven; whose eye
Is on our hearts, whose righteous arm befriends
The arm that strikes for freedom; speak! decree
The fate of our oppressors.
When dreaming least of peril!-When the heart,
Basking in sunny pleasure, doth forget
That hate may smile, but sleeps not.-Hide the sword
With a thick veil of myrtle, and in halls
Of banqueting, where the full wine-cup shines
Red in the festal torch-light, meet we there,
And bid them welcome to the feast of death.
Rai. Must innocence and guilt perish alike?
Mont. Who talks of innocence?
When hath their hand been stayed for innocence?
Let them all perish!--heaven will choose its own.
Why should their children live ?-The earthquake whelms
Its undistinguished thousands, making graves
Of peopled cities in its path-and this
Is heaven's dread justice—aye, and it is well!
Why then should we be tender, when the skies
Deal thus with man ?—what, if the infant bleed ?
Is there not power to hush the mother's pangs?
What, if the youthful bride perchance should fall
In her triumphant beauty?-Should we pause,
As if death were not mercy to the pangs
Which make our lives the records of our foes?
Let them all perish!-And if one be found
Amidst our band, to stay the avenging steel
For pity, or remorse, or boyish love,
Then be his doom as theirs!
Brethren, what means your silence?
If one amongst us stay the avenging steel
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