Old Man. Well, well-I am but like the ancient He almost curses life, so does he long To pass away in death, which he conceives The portal of immortal youth and joy. Like my poor father! "Tis, I must believe, Marg. Alas, thou know'st he will not leave this Sorrow and love have bound him to these walls [She sings. Bind thee unto thy mountains! Ugolin, Bowed 'neath the load of human ill, We ask not length of days, nor ease, At times despond, or turn from thee! Enter UGOLIN, softly. Ugo. How is thy father, Margaret? does he sleep? Marg. Methinks he does; I have not heard him move For half an hour. Ugo. Thou lookest sad, my love, Hast thought my tarriance long? I would have sped Marg. Alas, poor soul! it is a great affliction! Ugo. It is not oft thy spirit is o'ercast- Marg. Of late My spirit hath grown sadder, and I ponder Could I believe this weary waiting for me— To choose elsewhere; but I have known thee well, Ugo. Thy father is not well, dear Margaret, His sleep is sore disturbed. A master of the art; make way for him! Marg. "T was but a dream; There came a stranger and conversed with him An hour ere sunset, and he sees so rarely The face of man, that it becomes a terror To him in sleep; besides, his mind was burthened Before he went to rest. [A bell tolls the hour. Ugo. The time wears on;→ I must not tarry longer, or the hour Will be past midnight ere I reach my home. I will be here to-morrow ere the sun set. SCENE III. [The Old Man takes the sling, but attempting to throw, his arm drops powerless. The youths turn away and laugh. Old Man. Curse on this arm! am I a laughing- Let me go hence, I am an aged fool! Strang. [reconducting him to his seat.] My friend, Vain-glorious fools! to laugh the old to scorn. [He presents a small flask. Drink this, my friend, and vigorous life shall run Throughout your frame; you shall be young anon; You shall be even as these; and more than these! Old Man. Give me the flask! I'll shame the insolent: Noon of the next day—the saloon of a house in the Strang. [He takes it eagerly, then pauses as if Old Man. Said'st thou it would restore my van Will give thee youth which is imperishable! Old Man. [giving it back.] I'll drink it not! Strang. What, to be such as these, an evil thing! Did they not laugh at thee, and mock thine age? Old Man. Ay, what is youth but folly? Now I see The sinfulness of my unholy wishes: I thank thee, God, that thou hast kept my soul If pain and hunger could have made him mine, Old Man. [attempting to rise.] Give me here a He should not thus have left me: but I know sling; I will excel them all! Strang. [supporting him.] You shall, my friend! [To one of the youths.] Give here a sling, good Decius; here you see The soul is only strengthened by oppression. Marg. I do not know: the guest of yesterday CENE V. Midnight. The Old Man lying on his bed — Ugolin So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory? Marg. He is beside thee; Father, he is beside thee, even now. Ugo. My father, may the God of peace be with thee! Old Man. [looking earnestly at him.] Yes, thou art here, good Ugolin-good Ugolin! And thou art good: dear child, give me thy hand. Marg. Old Man. Ugo. Remember, God is full of tender mercy, And knows our weakness, nor will try our strength Beyond what it can bear. Old Man. I fear to die, who have so prayed for death! Ugo. Bethink thee, how our blessed Lord was tried, And of the agony wherein he prayed That that most bitter cup might pass from him! Ugo. [The old man turns his face to the wall. -Margaret and Ugolin kneel down and pray silently. Min. "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin of our dear brother here departed, we therefore comis the law, mit his body to the ground: earth to earth; ashes But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory to ashes; dust to dust: in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord through our Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ." [She closes the book. Old Man. The sting of death is sin! and over Strang. [aside.] Thus is it, whether it be saint or sinner, All are alike committed to the grave, [He looks among the mourners Sure that's the old man's daughter! and that man 40 Is pastor Ugolin! There then is buried [He hastens off. by choristers chanting. "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, write, from henceforth, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the spirit, for they shall rest from their labours." This second defeat of Achzib was like a blow given by an unseen hand; it was an event altogether ont of his calculation. He had heard how the spirit of the old man, in its moments of irritation, poured forth reproaches and murmurs against God, which would have been mortal sin had the heart responded to them. But his spirit resembled water in its dead calm, corrupt and unsightly, which nevertheless when agitated by the tempest overleaps its barriers, throws off its impurities, and rushes on in a strong, bright torrent. His discontent and his impatience were almost meaningless on his own lips; but addressed to him as the sentiments of another, to which he was required to assent, he started from their sinfulness, beholding, as it were, his own reflected image. This was an event beyond the range of Achzib's idea of possibilities. He was sceptical to all that virtue in human nature, which great occasions bring into action, though it may have lain dormant for half a life, and which may be regarded as a store in reserve for extraordinary emergency. "How," inquired Achzib, "has her loss been so very great?" "Know you not," rejoined the other, "that a mother mourns most, suffers most, for the child least worthy of her love? Man knows not to what an extent that mother's heart has suffered: it has been wounded unto death, and yet it lives on, enduring a life more painful than death, a life quivering with the sting of outraged love!" "Was he not young," inquired Achzib; "how then has he committed so great sin?" "You cannot have attentively regarded these things," replied the stranger, "or you would know that, for a young man, the most perilous of all conditions is to be the son of a widow; for losing the authority, the counsel, the example of a father, he falls into numberless temptations, against which a mother can be but an insufficient defence. Besides, young men, too often having experienced the easy, irresolute, uncertain government of a mother in their boyish years, cease to regard her with respect as they approach manhood." "But," said Achzib, recalling to mind the firm principle and devoted affection of the Poor Scholar, "I have known such arriving at manhood, armed at all points against temptation, and cherishing in their souls the most ardent love, the most holy reverence for a mother." "God forbid," replied the stranger," that I should say all mothers are inadequate to the government of a son, or all sons incapable of estimating, and gratefully rewarding the unwearied solicitude, the neversleeping affection of a mother; for I myself know a widow who has trained three noble sons from their fatherless boyhood, maintaining her own authority, and nurturing in their souls every virtuous and manly sentiment; and who now, adorning manhood, are as a crown of glory to her brow. And it may also be received as a truth, that love and reverence for a widowed mother will be as much a preservation from evil as the authority of a father- but these are the exceptions to the general rule, which is as I have said, that the sons of widows are the most peculiarly liable to temptation, and the least defended against it." "I believe you to be right,” replied Achzib, not a little pleased with the hint, which had inadvertently been given him. "I believe you are right! and of all temptations to which a young man so circumstanced is exposed, those of pleasure would be the most besetting," continued he, remembering the first sin of poor Luberg. The old man seemed, as it were, to have slipped from his grasp; and, half angry with himself for being overcome by so apparently weak an opponent, he turned from the burial-place and walked on, he hardly knew whither, for many hours. At length he was recalled to his own identity by coming upon a village church-yard, where a funeral was taking place. The dead seemed to have been of the lower class of society, if you might judge by the appearance of the coffin, its humble appurtenances, and its few attendants; but there was a something about its chief and only mourner, which told that misfortune had brought her thus low. Yet was her whole air melancholy and wretched in the extreme; and so Exactly so," said the stranger: "the timid, enerharrowed by grief, so woe-stricken, so wholly self-vating system of female government, gives the heart abandoned, that no one could see her for a moment a bias towards pleasure, without strengthening it for without knowing that it was her son who had been resistance, or even enabling it to discriminate becommitted to the dust, the only child of his mother, tween good and evil. This is the snare into which and she a widow. such generally fall; and there is hardly a sin more Achzib remarked this to an observant stranger who sorrowfully degrading, or one which holds its victim stood by. more irreclaimably: he is as one self-conducted to sacrifice; a captive, who rivets on his own fetters, while he groans for freedom: for the indulgence of those vices miscalled pleasure, while they deaden the will, leave quiveringly alive the sense of degradation. How has the poor youth, who is now gone down to the dust, looked with streaming eyes upon pure and noble beings, whom though he still worshipped, he had not the power to imitate, and from whose society he was cast as a fallen angel from heaven! How, to obliviate the maddening sense of his own degraded condition, has he plunged into excesses which he abhorred! Alas, the spirit, writhing under the compunctuous sense of evil, and the hopelessness of good, is a sight upon which the angels of God might drop tears of pity!" Achzib was satisfied with what he had heard; therefore, bidding his companion good day, he returned to the city. He had, however, a superstitious repugnance to making another trial in the scene of his late defeat; he therefore removed to a city where all was new to him, and very soon commenced his fifth essay, according to the hints thrown out by the stranger of the church-yard. In its full joy unto the heaven of heavens; All that the soul desires of good and fair The Spirit of greatness where the great have dwelt, Am I not young, and filled with high resolves? And like the sea my will shall be supreme; Man shall not set it barriers, nor shall say "Thus far, but yet no farther!" I will on! MADAME BERTHIER, THE MOTHER OF RAYMOND. Glory and pleasure at the goal I see, THE PASTOR, HIS GUARDIAN. And I will win them both: pleasure, which crowns ADELINE, THE PASTOR'S DAUGHTER, BETROTHED Glory with its most radiant diadem TO RAYMOND. CLARA, A YOUNG LADY OF THE CITY. Time occupied, upwards of three years. ACT I.-SCENE I. A summer morning—Raymond sitting under a large tree in the fields—a small village, half hid among wood, is seen in the distance. Raymond. How full of joy is life! All things are made For one great scheme of bliss-all things are good, Pleasure, that springs from the proud consciousness Ere long, dear mother, thou shalt see thy son I know not how renown shall be achieved; I will not bow unto the common things But who comes here? He hath the look of one Which nerves my limbs and makes all action pleasure. But I will up and meet him, and perchance The vigour of strong life is to my frame As pinions to the eagle and my soul Is as a winged angel, soaring up Improve this meeting to a better knowledge. [He rises, and meets a stranger, who is advancing over the fields towards him. |