Jul. Guilt hath pavilions, but no
privacy.
The very engine of his hatred checks
The torturer in his transport of revenge,
Which, while it swells his bosom, shakes his power
And raises friends to his worst enemy.
Muza. Where now are thine? will
they not curse the day
That gave thee birth, and hiss thy funeral?
Thou hast left none who could have pitied thee.
Jul. Many, nor those alone of
tenderer mould,
For me will weep—many alas thro’ me!
Already I behold my funeral.
The turbid cities wave and swell with it,
And wrongs are lost in that day’s pageantry:
Opprest and desolate, the countryman
Receives it like a gift; he hastens home,
Shews where the hoof of Moorish horse laid waste
His narrow croft and winter garden-plot,
Sweetens with fallen pride his children’s lore,
And
points their hatred; but applauds their tears.
Justice, who came not up to us thro’ life,
Loves to survey our likeness on our tombs,
When rivalry, malevolence, and wrath,
And every passion that once stormed around,
Is calm alike without them as within.
Our very chains make the whole world our own,
Bind those to us who else had past us by,
Those at whose call brought down to us, the light
Of future ages lives upon our name.
Muza. I may accelerate that
meteor’s fall,
And quench that idle ineffectual light
Without the knowledge of thy distant world.
Jul. My world and thine are not
that distant one.
Is age less wise, less merciful, than grief,
To keep this secret from thee, poor old man?
Thou canst not lessen, canst not aggravate
My sufferings, canst not shorten nor extend
Half a sword’s length between my God and me.
I thank thee for that better thought than fame,
Which
none however, who deserve, despise,
Nor lose from view till all things else are lost.
Abd. Julian, respect his age,
regard his power.
Many who feared not death, have dragged along
A piteous life in darkness and in chains.
Never was man so full of wretchedness
But something may be suffered after all,
Perhaps in what clings round his breast, and helps
To keep the ruin up, which he amidst
His agony and phrenzy overlooks,
But droops upon at last, and clasps, and dies.
Jul. Altho’ a Muza send far
underground,
Into the quarry whence the palace rose,
His mangled prey, climes alien and remote
Mark and record the pang; while overhead
Perhaps he passes on his favorite steed,
Less heedful of the misery he inflicts
Than of the expiring sparkle from a stone,
Yet we, alive or dead, have fellow men
If ever we have served them, who collect
From
prisons and from dungeons our remains,
And bear them in their bosom to their sons.
Man’s only reliques are his benefits;
These, be there ages, be there worlds, between,
Retain him in communion with his kind:
Hence is our solace, our security,
Our sustenance, till heavenly truth descends—
Losing in brightness and beatitude
The frail foundations of these humbler hopes—
And, like an angel, guiding us, at once
Leaves the loose chain and iron gate behind.
Muza. Take thou my justice first,
then hope for theirs.
I, who can bend the living to my will,
Fear not the dead, and court not the unborn:
Their arm will never reach me, nor shall thine.
Abd. Pity, release him, pardon
him, my father.
Forget how much thou hatest perfidy,
Think of him, once so potent, still so brave,
So calm, so self-dependent in distress—
I marvel
at him—hardly dare I blame,
When I behold him fallen from so high,
And so exalted after such a fall.
Mighty must that man be, who can forgive
A man so mighty; seize the hour to rise,
Another never comes: O say, my father,
Say, “Julian, be mine enemy no
more.”
He fills me with a greater awe than e’er
The field of battle, with himself the first,
When every flag that waved along our host
Drooped down the staff, as if the very winds
Hung in suspense before him—bid him go
And peace be with him, or let me depart.
Lo! like a god, sole and inscrutable,
He stands above our pity.
Jul. For that wish,
Vain as it is, ’tis virtuous—O, for that,
However wrong thy censure and thy praise,
Kind Abdalazis, mayst thou never feel
The rancour that consumes thy father’s breast,
Nor want
the pity thou hast sought for me.
Muza. Now hast thou sealed thy doom.
Jul. And thou thy crimes.
Abd. O father, heed him not: those
evil words
Leave neither blight nor blemish—let him go.
Muza. A boy, a very boy, art thou
indeed!
One who in early day would sally out
To chase the lion, and would call it sport,
But, when more wary steps had closed him round,
Slink from the circle, drop the toils, and blanch
Like a lithe plant from under snow in spring.
Abd. He who ne’er shrunk
from danger, might shrink now,
And ignominy would not follow here.
Muza. Peace, Abdalazis! how is
this? he bears
Nothing that warrants him invulnerable,
Shall I then shrink to smite him? shall my fears
Be greatest at the blow that ends them all?
Fears? no! ’tis justice—fair, immutable,
Whose measured step, at times, advancing nigh,
Appalls
the majesty of kings themselves.
[Aside.
O were he dead! tho’ then revenge were o’er!
ACT V. SCENE 5.
Officer. Thy wife, Count Julian!
Jul. Speak!
Offi. Is dead!
Jul. Adieu
Earth, and the humblest of all earthly hopes,
To hear of comfort, tho’ to find it vain.
Thou murderer of the helpless! shame of man!
Shame of thy own base nature! ’tis an act
He who could perpetrate could not avow,
Stained, as he boasts to be, with innocent blood,
Deaf to reproach, and blind to retribution.
Offi. Julian, be just;
’twill make thee less unhappy.
Grief
was her end: she held her younger boy
And wept upon his cheek; his naked breast
By recent death now hardening and inert,
Slipt from her knee; again with frantic grasp
She caught it, and it weighed her to the ground
There lay the dead—
Jul. She?
Offi. —And the youth her son.
Jul. Receive them to thy peace,
eternal God!
O soother of my hours, while I beheld
The light of day, and thine! adieu, adieu!
And, my Covilla! dost thou yet survive?
Yes, my lost child, thou livest yet—in shame!
O agony, past utterance! past thought!
That throwest death, as some light idle thing,
With all its terrors, into dust and air—
I will endure thee; I, whom heaven ordained
Thus to have served beneath my enemies,
Their conqueror, thus to have revisited
My native land with vengeance and with woe.
Henceforward shall she recognise her sons,
Impatient of oppression or disgrace,
And rescue them, or perish; let her hold
This compact, written with her blood, and mine.
[To the guards.
Now follow me—but tremble [128]—years shall roll
And wars rage on, and Spain at last be free.
THE END.
J. MOYES,
PRINTER,
Greville Street, Hatton Garden,
London.
Footnotes
[32] She attempts, but is unable, to speak.
[35] In Asturia, bordering on Biscay.
[36] Del Campo, in Castile.
[40] Covilla hesitates.
[58] Guard hesitates. Opas goes.
[128] To Muza, &c.