And Steno's lie, couch'd in two worthless lines,

Hath decimated Venice, put in peril

A senate which hath stood eight hundred years,

Discrown'd a prince, cut off his crownless head,

And forged new fetters for a groaning people!
Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan
Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,
Ifit so please him-'twere a pride fit for him!
But let him not insult the last hours of
Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a hero,
By the intrusion of his very prayers;
Nothing of good can come from such a source,
Nor would we aught with him, nor now,

Doge. Come!

The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill end.
Have I aught else to undergo save death?
Benint. You have nought to do, except
confess and die.

The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare,
And both await without.-But, above all,
Think not to speak unto the people; they
Are now by thousands swarming at the gates,
But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori,
The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,
Alone will be beholders of thy doom,
And they are ready to attend the Doge.
Doge. The Doge!

Benint. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die

A sovereign; till the moment which precedes The separation of that head and trunk, That ducal crown and head shall be united. Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning To plot with petty traitors; not so we, Who in the very punishment acknowledge The prince. Thy vile accomplices have died The dog's death, and the wolf's; but thou shalt fall

As falls the lion by the hunters, girt By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,

And mourn even the inevitable death Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal

fierceness.

The glory shall depart from out thy house, The wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul, And in thy best maturity of mind

A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee; Passion shall tear thee when all passions

cease

In other men, or mellow into virtues;
And majesty, which decks all other heads,
Shall crown to leave thee headless; honours
shall

But prove to thee the heralds of destruction,
And hoary hairs of shame, and both of death,
But not such death as fits an aged man.”
Thus saying, he pass'd on. -
That hour is

come.

Ang. And with this warning couldst thon
not have striven

To avert the fatal moment, and atone
By penitence for that which thou hadst done?

Doge. I own the words went to my

heart, so much That I remember'd them amid the maze Of life, as if they form'd a spectral voice, Which shook me in a supernatural dreami

And I repented; but 'twas not for me
To pull in resolution: what must be

I could not change, and would not fear.
Nay, more,

Thou canst not have forgot what all remember,

That on my day of landing here as Doge,
On my return from Rome, a mist of such
Unwonted density went on before

The Bucentaur like the columnar cloud
Which usher'd Israel out of Egypt, till
The pilot was misled, and disembark'd us
Between the pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis
The custom of the state to put to death
Its criminals, instead of touching at
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,—
So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen.
Ang. Ah! little boots it now to recollect
Such things.

Doge. And yet I find a comfort in The thought that these things are the work of Fate;

For I would rather yield to gods than men, Or cling to any creed of destiny,

Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom

I know to be as worthless as the dust, And weak as worthless, more than instruments

Of an o'er-ruling power; they in themselves Were all incapable-they could not be Victors of him who oft had conquer'd for them!

Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations

Of a more healing nature, and in peace Even with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven.

Doge. I am at peace: the peace of certainty That a sure hour will come, when their

sons' sons,

And this proud city, and these azure waters, And all which makes them eminent and

bright,

Shall be a desolation and a curse,

A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean-Babel!
Ang. Speak not thus now; the surge of
passion still

Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive
Thyself and canst not injure them-be

calmer.

Doge. I stand within eternity, and see Into eternity, and I behold— Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face For the last time the days which I denounce Unto all time against these wave-girt walls, And they who are indwellers.

Guard (coming forward). Doge of Venice, The Ten are in attendance on your highness. Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina! — one embrace

Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband love my memory
I would not ask so much for me still living,

A little love, or friendship, or esteem,
No, not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour
I have uprooted all my former life,
And outlived every thing, except thy heart,
The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft
With unimpair'd but not a clamorous grief
Still keep-Thou turn'st so pale-Alas! she
faints,

She hath no breath, no pulse! Guards! lend your aid—

I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better, Since every lifeless moment spares a pang. When she shakes off this temporary death, I shall be with the Eternal.--Call her

Women

One look!-how cold her hand! as cold as mine

Shall be ere she recovers.-Gently tend her, And take my last thanks.—I am ready now.

[The Attendants of ANGIOLINA enter and surround their mistress, who has fainted.-Exeunt the Doge, Guards, etc. etc.

SCENE III-The Court of the Ducal Palace: the outer gates are shut against the people. -The DoGE enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards till they arrive at the top of the "Giant's Staircase" (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword. On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.

Doge. So, now the Doge is nothing, and at last

I am again Marino Faliero :
Tis well to be so, though but for a moment.
Here was I crown'd, and here, bear witness,

Heaven!

Benint. They shall be cared for; Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.

Doge. Unheard-of! ay, there's not a history

But shows a thousand crown'd conspirators Against the people; but to set them free One sovereign only died, and one is dying. Benint. And who are they who fell in such a cause?

Doge. The King of Sparta, and the Doge of Venice

Agis and Faliero!

Benint. Hast thou more To utter or to do?

Doge. May I speak?

Benint. Thou mayst;

But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.
Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which grow a portion, not to man.
Ye elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore
my banner,

Ye winds! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it,

And fill'd my swelling sails as they were wafted

When thy patricians beg their bitter bread In narrow streets, and in their shameful need Make their nobility a plea for pity! Then, when the few who still retain a wreck Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vicegerent,

Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns,

Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,

Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung

From an adulteress boastful of her guilt With some large gondolier or foreign soldier, Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph To the third spurious generation ;—when Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being, Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors,

Despised by cowards for greater cowardice, And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices As in the monstrous grasp of their conception Defy all codes to image or to name them; Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,

All thine inheritance shall be her shame Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown

earth,

Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!

Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but

Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!

Thou sun! which shinest on these things,

and Thou!

Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!
Attest!

I am not innocent – but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close,
the doom

Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!-Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield
Unto a bastard-Attila, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence
As these old veins,oft drain'd in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her! She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!
Then, when the Hebrew 's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it
for his!