Rush by with flaring torch; he likewise enter'd.
There was another and a longer pause;
And once, methought I heard the clash of swords!
And soon the son of Valdez reappear'd:
He flung his torch towards the moon in sport,
And seem'd as he were mirthful! I stood listening,
Impatient for the footsteps of my husband!
I crept into the cavernTwas dark and very silent
[Then wildly.
What saidst thou?
No! no! I did not dare call, Isidore,
Lest I should hear no answer! A brief while,
Belike, I lost all thought and memory
Of that for which I came! After that pause,
O Heaven! I heard a groan, and follow'd it:
And yet another groan, which guided me
Into a strange recess and there was light,
A hideous light! his torch lay on the ground;
Its flame burnt dimly o'er a chasm's brink:
I spake; and whilst I spake, a feeble groan
Came from that chasm! it was his last! his
groan!
This is the process of our love and wisdom
To each poor brother who offends against us—
Most innocent, perhaps and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up,
By ignorance and parching poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,
And stagnate and corrupt, till, changed to poison,
They break out on him, like a lothesome plague.
spot!
Then we call in our pamper'd mountebanks:
And this is their best cure! uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,
And savage faces, at the clanking hour,
Seen through the steam and vapors of his dungeon
By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies
Circled with evil, till his very soul
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deform'd
By sights of evermore deformity!
With other ministrations thou, O Nature!
Healest thy wandering and distemper'd child:
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets;
Thy melodies of words, and winds, and waters!
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;
But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
His angry spirit heal'd and harmonized
By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
I am chill and weary! Yon rude bench of stone,
death-In that dark angle, the sole resting-place!
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I look'd far down the pit-
My sight was bounded by a jutting fragment:
And it was stain'd with blood. Then first I shriek'd,
My eye-balls burnt, my brain grew hot as fire,
And all the hanging drops of the wet roof
Turn'd into blood-I saw them turn to blood!
And I was leaping wildly down the chasm,
When on the farther brink I saw his sword,
And it said, Vengeance!-Curses on my tongue!
The moon hath moved in Heaven, and I am here,
And he hath not had vengeance! Isidore!
Spirit of Isidore! thy murderer lives!
Away! away!
[She rushes off, all following her.
ALVAR (alone) rises slowly from a bed of reeds.
And this place my forefathers made for man'
But the self-approving mind is its own light,
And life's best warmth still radiates from the heart
Where Love sits brooding, and an honest purpose.
[Retires out of sight.
Enter TERESA with a Taper.
It has chill'd my very life-my own voice scares me!
Yet when I hear it not, I seem to lose
The substance of my being-my strongest grasp
Sends inwards but weak witness that I am.
I seek to cheat the echo.-How the half sounds
Blend with this strangled light! Is he not here
[Looking round.
O for one human face here-but to see
One human face here to sustain me.-Courage !
It is but my own fear! The life within me,
It sinks and wavers like this cone of flame,
Beyond which I scarce dare look onward! Oh!
[Shuddering.
If I faint! If this inhuman den should be
At once my death-bed and my burial vault!
[Faintly screams as ALVAR emerges from the recess.
ALVAR (rushes towards her, and catches her as she
is falling).
O gracious Heaven! it is, it is Teresa!
I shall reveal myself? The sudden shock
Of rapture will blow out this spark of life,
And Joy complete what Terror has begun.
O ye impetuous beatings here, be still!
Teresa, best beloved! pale, pale, and cold!
Her pulse doth flutter! Teresa! my Teresa!
TERESA (recovering, looks round wildly).
I heard a voice; but often in my dreams
I hear that voice! and wake and try—and try-
Thou dost not leave me! But a brief while retire into the darkness:
TERESA (retires from him, and feebly supports herself O that my joy could spread its sunshine round thee
against a pillar of the dungeon).
It told but half the truth. O let this portrait
Tell all-that Alvar lives-that he is here!
Thy much deceived but ever faithful Alvar.
The sound of thy voice shall be my music!
[Retiring, she returns hastily and embraces ALVAR. Alvar! my Alvar! am I sure I hold thee? Is it no dream? thee in my arms, my Alvar! [Eril [A noise at the Dungeon door. It opens, and ORDONIO enters, with a goblet in his hand
Hail, potent wizard! in my gayer mood
I pour'd forth a libation to old Pluto,
And as I brimm'd the bowl, I thought on thee.
Thou hast conspired against my life and honor,
Hast trick'd me foully; yet I hate thee not.
Why should I hate thee? this same world of ours,
"Tis but a pool amid a storm of rain,
And we the air-bladders that course up and down,
And joust and tilt in merry tournament;
And when one bubble runs foul of another,
[Waving his hand to ALVAR
Which moves this way and that its hundred limbs,
Were it a toy of mere mechanic craft,
It were an infinitely curious thing!
But it has life, Ordonio! life, enjoyment!
And by the power of its miraculous will
Wields all the complex movements of its frame
[Takes her portrait from his neck, and gives it her. Unerringly to pleasurable ends!
TERESA (receiving the portrait).
The same-it is the same. Ah! who art thou?
Nay I will call thee, ALVAR! [She falls on his neck.
Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim,
I would remove it with an anxious pity!
There's poison in the wine.
Thou hast guess'd right; there's poison in the wine
There's poison in 't-which of us two shall drink it ?
For one of us must die!
Whom dost thou think me ?
The accomplice and sworn friend of Isidore.
How sweet and musical the name of Alvar!
Then, then, Ordonio, he was dear to thee,
And thou wert dear to him; Heaven only knows
How very dear thou wert! Why didst thou hate him?
And yet methinks I have heard the name but lately. O heaven! how he would fall upon thy neck,
Means he the husband of the Moorish woman?
Isidore? Isidore?
Mountebank and villain!
What then art thou? For shame, put up thy sword!
What boots a weapon in a wither'd arm?
I fix mine eye upon thee, and thou tremblest!
I speak, and fear and wonder crush thy rage,
And turn it to a motionless distraction!
Thou blind self-worshipper! thy pride, thy cunning,
Thy faith in universal villany,
Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn
For all thy human brethren-out upon them!
What have they done for thee? have they given thee
peace?
Cured thee of starting in thy sleep? or made
Cheat! villain! traitor! whatsoever thou be
I fear thee, man!
TERESA (rushing out and falling on ALVAR's neck).
Ordonio! 'tis thy brother.
[ORDONIO with frantic wildness runs upon ALVAR
with his sword. TERESA flings herself on
ORDONIO and arrests his arm.
Stop, madman, stop.
Does then this thin disguise impenetrably
Hide Alvar from thee? Toil and painful wounds
And long imprisonment in unwholesome dungeons,
Have marr'd perhaps all trait and lineament
Of what I was! But chiefly, chiefly, brother,
My anguish for thy guilt!
Ordonio-Brother!
Nay, nay, thou shalt embrace me.
ORDONIO (drawing back and gazing at Alvar with a
countenance of at once awe and terror).
Touch me not!
The darkness pleasant when thou wakest at midnight? Touch not pollution, Alvar! I will die.
Art happy when alone? Canst walk by thyself
With even step and quiet cheerfulness?
Yet, yet thou mayest be saved
ORDONIO (vacantly repeating the words).
He told me of the babes that prattled to him,
His fatherless little ones! Remorse! Remorse!
Where gott'st thou that fool's word? Curse on Remorse!
Can it give up the dead, or recompact
A mangled body? mangled-dash'd to atoms!
Not all the blessings of a host of angels
Can blow away a desolate widow's curse!
[He attempts to fall on his sword: ALVAR and TERESA
We will find means to save your honor. Live,
Oh live, Ordonio! for our father's sake!
Spare his gray hairs!
And you may yet be happy.
O horror! not a thousand years in heaven
Could recompose this miserable heart,
Or make it capable of one brief joy!
Live! Live! Why yes! 't were well to live with you:
For is it fit a villain should be proud?
My brother! I will kneel to you, my brother!
And though thou spill thy heart's blood for atonement, Forgive me, Alvar!-Curse me with forgiveness!
He would have died to save me, and I kill'd him-She hath avenged the blood of Isidore!
A husband and a father!-
Prepare my punishment in the obscure world-
I will not bear to live-to live-O agony !
And be myself alone my own sore torment!
[The doors of the dungeon are broken open, and in
rush ALHADRA, and the band of MORESCOES.
I stood in silence like a slave before her,
That I might taste the wormwood and the gall,
And satiate this self-accusing heart
With bitterer agonies than death can give.
Forgive me, Alvar!
Oh! couldst thou forget me! [Dies [ALVAR and TERESA bend over the body of ORDONIO
I thank thee, Heaven! thou hast ordain'd it wisely,
That still extremes bring their own cure. That point
In misery, which makes the oppressed Man
Regardless of his own life, makes him too
Lord of the Oppressor's-Knew I a hundred men
Despairing, but not palsied by despair,
[ALVAR presses onward to defend ORDONIO. This arm should shake the Kingdoms of the World,
Why didst thou leave his children?
Demon, thou shouldst have sent thy dogs of hell
To lap their blood! Then, then I might have harden'd
My soul in misery, and have had comfort.
I would have stood far off, quiet though dark,
And bade the race of men raise up a mourning
For a deep horror of desolation,
Too great to be one soul's particular lot!
Brother of Zagri! let me lean upon thee.
[Struggling to suppress her feelings.
The time is not yet come for woman's anguish.
I have not seen his blood-Within an hour
Those little ones will crowd around and ask me,
Where is our father? I shall curse thee then!
The deep foundations of iniquity
Should sink away, earth groaning from beneath them;
The strong-holds of the cruel men should fall,
Their Temples and their mountainous Towers should
Wert thou in heaven, my curse would pluck thee Delights so full, if unalloy'd with grief,
Were ominous. In these strange dread events
Just Heaven instructs us with an awful voice,
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice.
Our inward monitress to guide or warn,
If listen'd to; but if repell'd with scorn,
At length as dire Remorse, she reappears,
Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears!
Still bids, Remember! and still cries, Too late!
And while she scares us, goads us to our fate.
Note 1, page 81, col. 1
You are a painter
The following lines I have preserved in this place, not so much as explanatory of the picture of the assassination, as (if I may say so without disrespect to the Public) to gratify my own feelings, the passage being no mere fancy portrait; but a slight, yet not
unfaithful profile of one, who still lives, nobilitate felix, arte clarior, vitâ colendissimus.
ZULIMEZ (speaking of Alvar in the third person). Such was the noble Spaniard's own relation. He told me, too, how in his early youth, And his first travels, 't was his choice or chance To make long sojoura in sea-wedded Venice; There won the love of that divine old man, Courted by mightiest kings, the famous Titian! Who, like a second and more lovely Nature, By the sweet mystery of lines and colors, Changed the blank canvas to a magic mirror, That made the Absent present; and to Shadows
Gave light, depth, substance, bloom, yea, thought and motion.
He loved the old man, and revered his art:
And though of noblest birth and ample fortune,
The young enthusiast thought it no scorn
But this inalienable ornament,
To be his pupil, and with filial zeal
By practice to appropriate the sage lessons,
Which the gay, smiling old man gladly gave.
The Art, he honor'd thus, requited him:
And in the following and calamitous years
Beguiled the hours of his captivity.
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My husband's father told it me,
Poor old Sesina-angels rest his soul!
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel ?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Valdez' cost.
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
A pretty boy, but most unteachable
He never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,
But knew the names of birds, and mock'd their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
And all the autumn 't was his only play
To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who gather'd simples in the wood,
A gray-hair'd man, he loved this little boy:
The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time
Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle,
So he became a rare and learned youth:
But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turn'd; and ere his twentieth year
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he pray'd, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place.
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Valdez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the chapel
They stood together, chain'd in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall totter'd, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frighten'd,
A fever seized him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobb'd like a child-it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was working near this dungeon,
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wide savanna
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning entrance I described,
And the young man escaped.
'Tis a sweet tale: Such as would lull a listening child to sleep, His rosy face besoil'd with unwiped tears. And what became of him?
He went on shipboard With those bold voyagers who made discovery Of golden lands. Sesina's younger brother Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain, He told Sesina, that the poor mad youth, Soon after they arrived in that new world, In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat, And all alone set sail by silent moonlight Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed, He lived and died among the savage men. 105
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