Theo. Blessed powers! she does! How can you frown and hear it? Her generous soul, first touched by gratitude, Aust. What can I do? Come near, my Theodore : Theo. Can I doubt it? 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, That proud, unfeeling Narbonne, from his lips Well might such words have fallen; but thou, my father.— 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: (Exeunt.) 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. Montalba. Procida. And know you not my story? In the lands 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. Mont. Oh! what lovely dreams Rose on my spirit, when after long years My good steed homewards. There were tears and smiles, And clinging arms, whose passionate clasp of love Hence, feeble thoughts! But listen!--I drew near my own fair home; I paused in fear. I called-my struggling voice Mont. Aye, well! for death is well, And they were all at rest!—I see them yet, 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. Mont. None! Therefore I brought you hither, that your hearts Might catch the spirit of the scene! Look round! As on an altar; and the eternal stars, And heaven, and night, bore witness to my vow, 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? Proc. I knew a young Sicilian, one whose heart That father's blood gushed o'er him!-and the boy Second Sicilian. He bears a sheathless sword! Proc. Thou, too, come forth, From thine own halls an exile !-Dost thou make The mountain-fastnesses, thy dwelling still, First Sicilian. Even so. I stood Last night before my own ancestral towers On my bare head-what recked it ?-There was joy Were streaming from each turret, and gay songs, Call on the outcast when revenge is nigh. Proc. Our band shows gallantly-but there are men To give their full hearts way, and breathe a wish Guido. Look on me! I have a brother, a young high-souled boy, A glorious creature!-But his doom is sealed That heartless laugh of cold malignity We know so well, and spurned me.--But the stain Proc. I call upon thee now! The land's high soul Te peasant dreams of freedom!--aye, 'tis thus Oppression fans the imperishable flame When slavery's cup O'erflows its bounds, the creeping poison, meant To burst man's fetters-and they shall be burst! The majesty of yon pure heaven; whose eye Is on our hearts, whose righteous arm befriends Mont. Let them fall When dreaming least of peril!-When the heart, That hate may smile, but sleeps not.-Hide the sword Of banqueting, where the full wine-cup shines When hath their hand been stayed for innocence? Is heaven's dread justice—aye, and it is well! Why gaze ye thus? (A pause.) Brethren, what means your silence? Gui. Be it so ! If one amongst us stay the avenging steel |