Page images
PDF
EPUB

Describes his path-anon she starts amazed—
But to her task inclines again-

For soon her erring planet's disk obscure she spies,
Nor needs a "milky-way" to light it to her eyes.

With arms encumbered a-la-Nap, and stride
That players practise in the walk of pride,
Joe singles out a corner in his garret,
Resolved to play the Moor, and star it.
"Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors!
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true-true, I have married her."
Kate, somewhat puzzled, leans to hear,
Then, interrupting, with a tear

Makes bold to wipe the actor from his face-
When Joe, with more of emphasis than
"That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give

grace

"Egyptian! that's a good un," muttered Kate, Who just had purchased it in Cripplegate

"Desdemona, have you prayed to-night?

[ocr errors]

I would not kill thy unprepared spirit!
"Kill, Joe? sure you do but prate?"
"Nay, then, it is too late "-

And following up Othello's act,

The spouter straight her throat attacked-
Killing in jest, as Hamlet says,

While, stoutly now, his Kate displays

No science mean, but parries quick-now plants a hitThen, deaf to time, slips down to breathe and scream a bit.

Meantime, by-play is rigidly maintained

Not by Emelia nor Venetian lords,

But armed police, who, quickened to the chase By female shrieks, are swift to know the case. The charge is made-but not a word obtained— His situation proof affords

"Sirrah, where's your wife?"

"I have no wife!"

Kate, peeping forth from no right wing or upper door,
But from her truckle bed upon the floor,

Explains how still her Joe with wife was blest,

And how the Moor he only played in jest

""Twas so, indeed! and Kate, as one is apt to do
Who follows nature in a part that's new,
Her voice extended somewhat wide,

Supposing accent thus applied

Would mark

[ocr errors]

"Bring him along! The peace has been disturbed! Nay, wife and all! This passion must be curbed!” Our hero, finding now the scene to change,

And more persona cast than Shakspeare drew, Yet still to acting pledged, and to his author true,— And tracing, in his own, a semblance strange

To great Othello's fate—his eye around

He threw to see what he could find, and found A broomstick

"Behold! I have a weapon!

A better ne'er sustained itself upon a soldier's thigh.
In Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk

Struck a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog
And smote him thus

At length, by fearful odds beleaguered,

They dragged him forth disarmed, disfigured—
His cheek, nor black nor pale, but now

One crimson stream from chin to brow

In the Lock-up secured, ambition sunk unblest
His flesh one common sore-one sweeping curse his breast.

Next morning, Judgment sent our Souter,
Spite of fine,

To the tread-mill of corrective cast,

There to pine

In penance prescribed for errors past.

May all who blindly feed an itching in their brain
For gifts which Heaven denies, nor they can else

obtain,

So judge themselves as we have judged the Spouter.
MANUSCRIPT.

SCENE-WILLIAM TELL.

Tell. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the hands you first beheld,

To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home
Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How huge you are! how mighty and how free!
How do you look, for all your bared brows,
More gorgeously majestical than kings

Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine!

Ye are the things that tower, that shine-whose smile
Makes glad whose frown is terrible—whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine-whose subject never kneels
In mockery, because it is your boast
To keep him free! Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you
To show they still are free! I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!

Enter ERNI.

Erni. Thou'rt sure to keep the time, That com'st before the hour.

Tell. The hour, my friend,

Will soon be here. O, when will liberty
Be here! My Erni, that's my thought, which still
I find beside. Scaling yonder peak,
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow:
O'er the abyss his broad-expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoy'd him proudly up. Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath,
And round about, absorb'd, he heeded not

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot!—

"Twas liberty. I turned my bow aside,

And let him soar away.

Enter VERNER and FURST.

Tell. Here, friends !-Well met!-Do we go on?
Verner. We do.

Tell. Then you can reckon on the friends you named?
Ver. On every man of them.

Furst. And I on mine.

Erni. Not one I sounded, but doth rate his blood As water in the cause! Then fix the day

Before we part.

Ver. No, Erni: rather wait

For some new outrage to amaze and rouse

The common mind, which does not brood so much
On wrongs gone by, as it doth quiver with

The sense of present ones.

Tell. I wish with Erni,

But I think with thee. Yet, when I ask myself

On whom the wrong shall light for which we wait— Whose vineyard they'll uproot-whose flocks they'll ra

vage

Whose threshold they'll profane-whose earth pollute-
Whose roof they'll fire ?-When this I ask myself,
And think upon the blood of pious sons,

The tears of venerable fathers, and

The shrieks of mothers, fluttering round their spoil'd
And nestless young, I almost take the part
Of generous indignation, that doth blush

At such expense to wait on sober prudence.
Furst. Yet it is best.

Tell. On that we're all agreed.

Who fears the issue when the day shall come?
I'm not the man

To mar this harmony. Nor I, no more
Than any of you! You commit to me
The warning of the rest. Remember, then,
My dagger sent to any one of you—
As time may press-is word enough. The others
I'll see myself. Our course is clear Dear Erni,
Remember me to Melctal. Furst, provide
What store you can of arms. Do
you the same.
The next aggression of the tyrant is

The downfall of his

power. Remember me

To Melctal, Erni-to my father. Tell him

He has a son was never born to him!

Farewell!-When next we meet upon this theme
All Switzerland shall witness what we do! [Exeunt.

-KNOWLES.

SCENE-EMMA.

Emma. O, the fresh morning! Heaven's kind
That never empty-handed comes to those
Who know to use its gifts. Praise be to Him
Who loads it still, and bids it constant run
The errand of His bounty! Praise be to Him!
We need His care that on the mountain's cliff
Lodge by the storm, and cannot lift our eyes,
But piles on piles of everlasting snows,
O'erhanging us, remind us of His mercy.

Albert. My mother!

Emma. Albert!

Enter ALBERT.

messenger,

Alb. [Descending, and approaching Emma.] Bless thee!

Emma. Bless thee, Albert!

How early were you up ?

Alb. Before the sun.

Emma. Ay, strive with him. He never lies a-bed

When it is time to rise.

He ever is

The constant'st workman that goes through his task,
And shows us how to work by setting to't

With smiling face; for labour's light as ease
That cheerfulness doth take in hand. Be like
The sun.

Alb. What you would have me like, I'll be like,
As far as will, to labour join'd, can make me.

Emma. Well said, my boy! Knelt you, when you

got up

To-day?

Alb. I did; and do so every day.

Emma. I know you do! And think you, when you

kneel,

To whom you kneel?

« PreviousContinue »