I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.
Byron
now you recognise him.
_3d Sold. _ My brain's crushed!
Comrades, help, ho! All's darkness! [He dies.
_Other Soldiers_ (_coming up_).
Slay her, although she had a thousand lives:
She hath killed our comrade.
_Olimp. _ Welcome such a death!
You have no life to give, which the worst slave
Would take. Great God! through thy redeeming Son,
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as 70
I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee!
_Enter_ ARNOLD.
_Arn. _ What do I see? Accursed jackals! Forbear!
_Caes. _ (_aside and laughing_). Ha! ha! here's equity! The dogs
Have as much right as he. But to the issue!
_Soldiers_. Count, she hath slain our comrade.
_Arn. _ With what weapon?
_Sold. _ The cross, beneath which he is crushed; behold him
Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it
Upon his head.
_Arn. _ Even so: there is a woman
Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such,
Ye would have honoured her. But get ye hence, 80
And thank your meanness, other God you have none,
For your existence. Had you touched a hair
Of those dishevelled locks, I would have thinned
Your ranks more than the enemy. Away!
Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves,
But not even these till he permits.
_A Sold. _ (_murmuring_). The lion
Might conquer for himself then.
_Arn. _ (_cuts him down_). Mutineer!
Rebel in hell--you shall obey on earth!
[_The Soldiers assault_ ARNOLD.
_Arn. _ Come on! I'm glad on't! I will show you, slaves,
How you should be commanded, and who led you 90
First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
Until I waved my banners from its height,
As you are bold within it.
[ARNOLD _mows down the foremost; the rest throw down their arms_.
_Soldiers_. Mercy! mercy!
_Arn. _ Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you _who_
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements?
_Soldiers_. We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive
A moment's error in the heat of conquest--
The conquest which you led to.
_Arn. _ Get you hence!
Hence to your quarters! you will find them fixed
In the Colonna palace.
_Olimp. _ (_aside_). In my father's 100
House!
_Arn. _ (_to the Soldiers_). Leave your arms; ye have no further need
Of such: the city's rendered. And mark well
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.
_Soldiers_ (_deposing their arms and departing_). We obey!
_Arn. _ (_to_ OLIMPIA). Lady, you are safe.
_Olimp. _ I should be so,
Had I a knife even; but it matters not--
Death hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,
Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
Upon destruction, shall my head be dashed,
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man! 110
_Arn. _ I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
Thine own, although I have not injured thee.
_Olimp. _ No! Thou hast only sacked my native land,--
No injury! --and made my father's house
A den of thieves! No injury! --this temple--
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
To be----but that shall never be!
[_She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds her robe round her,
and prepares to dash herself down on the side of
the Altar opposite to that where_ ARNOLD _stands_.
_Arn. _ Hold! hold!
I swear.
_Olimp. _ Spare thine already forfeit soul
A perjury for which even Hell would loathe thee. 120
I know thee.
_Arn. _ No, thou know'st me not; I am not
Of these men, though----
_Olimp. _ I judge thee by thy mates;
It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me,
And here, upon the marble of this temple,
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
I offer him a blood less holy
But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
A redeemed infant) than the holy water 130
The saints have sanctified!
[OLIMPIA _waves her hand to_ ARNOLD _with disdain, and
dashes herself on the pavement from the Altar_.
_Arn. _ Eternal God!
I feel thee now! Help! help! she's gone.
_Caes. _ (_approaches_). I am here.
_Arn. _ Thou! but oh, save her!
_Caes. _ (_assisting him to raise_ OLIMPIA). She hath done it well!
The leap was serious.
_Arn. _ Oh! she is lifeless!
_Caes. _ If
She be so, I have nought to do with that:
The resurrection is beyond me.
_Arn. _ Slave!
_Caes. _ Aye, slave or master, 'tis all one: methinks
Good words, however, are as well at times.
_Arn. _ Words! --Canst thou aid her?
_Caes. _ I will try. A sprinkling
Of that same holy water may be useful. 140
[_He brings some in his helmet from the font_.
_Arn. _ 'Tis mixed with blood.
_Caes. _ There is no cleaner now
In Rome.
_Arn. _ How pale! how beautiful! how lifeless!
Alive or dead, thou Essence of all Beauty,
I love but thee!
_Caes. _ Even so Achilles loved
Penthesilea;[249] with his form it seems
You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one.
_Arn. _ She breathes! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last
Faint flutter Life disputes with Death.
_Caes. _ She breathes.
_Arn. _ _Thou_ say'st it? Then 'tis truth.
_Caes. _ You do me right--
The Devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed: 150
He hath an ignorant audience.
_Arn. _ (_without attending to him_). Yes! her heart beats.
Alas! that the first beat of the only heart
I ever wished to beat with mine should vibrate
To an assassin's pulse.
_Caes. _ A sage reflection,
But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her?
I say she lives.
_Arn. _ And will she live?
_Cas. _ As much
As dust can.
_Arn. _ Then she is dead!
_Caes. _ Bah! bah! You are so,
And do not know it. She will come to life--
Such as you think so, such as you now are;
But we must work by human means.
_Arn. _ We will 160
Convey her unto the Colonna palace,
Where I have pitched my banner.
_Caes. _ Come then! raise her up!
_Arn. _ Softly!
_Caes. _ As softly as they bear the dead,
Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.
_Arn. _ But doth she live indeed?
_Caes. _ Nay, never fear!
But, if you rue it after, blame not me.
_Arn. _ Let her but live!
_Caes. _ The Spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office:--'tis not oft 170
I am employed in such; but you perceive
How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now _I_ desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex. [250]
_Arn. _ Thou!
_Caes. _ I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.
_Arn. _ Rival!
_Caes. _ I could be one right formidable;
But since I slew the seven husbands of 180
Tobias' future bride (and after all
Was smoked out by some incense),[251] I have laid
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
Of gaining, or--what is more difficult--
Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
The rub! at least to mortals.
_Arn. _ Prithee, peace!
Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!
_Caes. _ Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor
For Lucifer and Venus.
_Arn. _ To the palace
Colonna, as I told you!
_Caes. _ Oh! I know 190
My way through Rome.
_Arn. _ Now onward, onward! Gently!
[_Exeunt, bearing_ OLIMPIA. _The scene closes_.
PART III.
SCENE I. --_A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but
smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates_.
_Chorus_.
I.
The wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!
II.
The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun:[dt]
With us she is but a winter's flower,
The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, 10
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.
III.
And when the spring comes with her host
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.
IV.
Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December--
The morning star of all the flowers,
The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours; 20
Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget
The virgin--virgin Violet.
_Enter_ CAESAR.
_Caes. _ (_singing_).
The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,
The steed bites the bridle,
The casque's on the wall.
There's rest for the rover;
But his armour is rusty,
And the veteran grows crusty,
As he yawns in the hall. 30
He drinks--but what's drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.
_Chorus_.
But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly
To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble 40
With birds from their nest.
_Caes_.
Oh! shadow of Glory!
Dim image of War!
But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,
Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder
And quake for their race.
When the lion was young, 50
In the pride of his might,
Then 'twas sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;
To go forth, with a pine
For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine[du]
At the foaming behemoth;
While man was in stature
As towers in our time,
The first born of Nature, 60
And, like her, sublime!
_Chorus_.
But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, and we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!
[_Exeunt the Peasantry, singing_.
FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF _THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED_.
_Chorus_.
When the merry bells are ringing,
And the peasant girls are singing,
And the early flowers are flinging
Their odours in the air;
And the honey bee is clinging
To the buds; and birds are winging
Their way, pair by pair:
Then the earth looks free from trouble
With the brightness of a bubble:
Though I did not make it, 10
I could breathe on and break it;
But too much I scorn it,
Or else I would mourn it,
To see despots and slaves
Playing o'er their own graves.
_Enter_ COUNT ARNOLD.
{_Mem. _ Jealous--Arnold of Caesar.
{Olympia at first not liking Caesar
{--then? --Arnold jealous of himself
{under his former figure, owing to
{the power of intellect, etc. , etc. , etc.
_Arnold_. You are merry, Sir--what? singing too?
_Caesar_. It is
The land of Song--and Canticles you know
Were once my avocation.
_Arn. _ Nothing moves you;
You scoff even at your own calamity--
And such calamity! how wert thou fallen 20
Son of the Morning! and yet Lucifer
Can smile.
_Caes. _ His shape can--would you have me weep,
In the fair form I wear, to please you?
_Arn. _ Ah!
_Caes. _ You are grave--what have you on your spirit!
_Arn. _ Nothing.
_Caes. _ How mortals lie by instinct! If you ask
A disappointed courtier--What's the matter?
"Nothing"--an outshone Beauty what has made
Her smooth brow crisp--"Oh, Nothing! "--a young heir
When his Sire has recovered from the Gout,
What ails him? "Nothing! " or a Monarch who 30
Has heard the truth, and looks imperial on it--
What clouds his royal aspect? "Nothing," "Nothing! "
Nothing--eternal nothing--of these nothings
All are a lie--for all to them are much!
And they themselves alone the real "Nothings. "
Your present Nothing, too, is something to you--
What is it?
_Arn. _ Know you not?
_Caes. _ I only know
What I desire to know! and will not waste
Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with it!
If you seek aid from me--or else be silent. 40
And eat your thoughts--till they breed snakes within you.
_Arn. _ Olimpia!
_Caes. _ I thought as much--go on.
_Arn. _ I thought she had loved me.
_Caes. _ Blessings on your Creed!
What a good Christian you were found to be!
But what cold Sceptic hath appalled your faith
And transubstantiated to crumbs again
The _body_ of your Credence?
_Arn. _ No one--but--
Each day--each hour--each minute shows me more
And more she loves me not--
_Caes. _ Doth she rebel?
_Arn. _ No, she is calm, and meek, and silent with me, 50
And coldly dutiful, and proudly patient--
Endures my Love--not meets it.
_Caes. _ That seems strange.
You are beautiful and brave! the first is much
For passion--and the rest for Vanity.
_Arn. _ I saved her life, too; and her Father's life,
And Father's house from ashes.
_Caes. _ These are nothing.
You seek for Gratitude--the Philosopher's stone.
_Arn. _ And find it not.
_Caes. _ You cannot find what is not.
But _found_ would it content you? would you owe
To thankfulness what you desire from Passion? 60
No! No! you would be _loved_--what you call loved--
_Self-loved_--loved for _yourself_--for neither health,
Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor rank, nor beauty--
For these you may be stript of--but _beloved_
As an abstraction--for--you know not what!
These are the wishes of a moderate lover--
And _so_ you love.
_Arn. _ Ah! could I be beloved,
Would I ask wherefore?
_Caes. _ Yes! and not believe
The answer--You are jealous.
_Arn. _ And of whom?
_Caes. _ It may be of yourself,[252] for Jealousy 70
Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb
Is mighty--as you mortals deem--and to
Your little Universe seems universal;
But, great as He appears, and is to you,
The smallest cloud--the slightest vapour of
Your humid earth enables you to look
Upon a Sky which you revile as dull;
Though your eyes dare not gaze on it when cloudless.
Nothing can blind a mortal like to light.
Now Love in you is as the Sun--a thing 80
Beyond you--and your Jealousy's of Earth--
A cloud of your own raising.
_Arn. _ Not so always!
There is a cause at times.
_Caes. _ Oh, yes! when atoms jostle,
The System is in peril. But I speak
Of things you know not. Well, to earth again!
This precious thing of dust--this bright Olimpia--
This marvellous Virgin, is a marble maid--
An Idol, but a cold one to your heat
Promethean, and unkindled by your torch.
_Arn. _ Slave!
_Caes. _ In the victor's Chariot, when Rome triumphed, 90
There was a Slave of yore to tell him truth!
You are a Conqueror--command your Slave.
_Arn. _ Teach me the way to win the woman's love.
_Caes. _ Leave her.
_Arn. _ Where that the path--I'd not pursue it.
_Caes. _ No doubt! for if you did, the remedy
Would be for a disease already cured.
_Arn. _ All wretched as I am, I would not quit
My unrequited love, for all that's happy.
_Caes. _ You have possessed the woman--still possess.
What need you more?
_Arn. _ To be myself possessed-- 100
To be her heart as she is mine.
FOOTNOTES:
[201] {473}[_The Three Brothers_, by Joshua Pickersgill, junior, was
published in 1803. There is no copy of _The Three Brothers_ in the
British Museum. The following extracts are taken from a copy in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford (vol. 4, cap. xi. pp. 229-350):--
"Arnaud, the natural son of the Marquis de Souvricour, was a child
'extraordinary in Beauty and Intellect. ' When travelling with his
parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years old, he was shot at by
banditti, and forsaken by his parents. The Captain of the band nursed
him. 'But those perfections to which Arnaud owed his existence, ceased
to adorn it. The ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had
dislocated it; by the latter misadventure his spine likewise was so
fatally injured as to be irrecoverable to its pristine uprightness.
Injuries so compound confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see a
creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an
excrescent shoulder. ' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents.
'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their
indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct. . . . Of his
person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.
_3d Sold. _ My brain's crushed!
Comrades, help, ho! All's darkness! [He dies.
_Other Soldiers_ (_coming up_).
Slay her, although she had a thousand lives:
She hath killed our comrade.
_Olimp. _ Welcome such a death!
You have no life to give, which the worst slave
Would take. Great God! through thy redeeming Son,
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me as 70
I would approach thee, worthy her, and him, and thee!
_Enter_ ARNOLD.
_Arn. _ What do I see? Accursed jackals! Forbear!
_Caes. _ (_aside and laughing_). Ha! ha! here's equity! The dogs
Have as much right as he. But to the issue!
_Soldiers_. Count, she hath slain our comrade.
_Arn. _ With what weapon?
_Sold. _ The cross, beneath which he is crushed; behold him
Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it
Upon his head.
_Arn. _ Even so: there is a woman
Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such,
Ye would have honoured her. But get ye hence, 80
And thank your meanness, other God you have none,
For your existence. Had you touched a hair
Of those dishevelled locks, I would have thinned
Your ranks more than the enemy. Away!
Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves,
But not even these till he permits.
_A Sold. _ (_murmuring_). The lion
Might conquer for himself then.
_Arn. _ (_cuts him down_). Mutineer!
Rebel in hell--you shall obey on earth!
[_The Soldiers assault_ ARNOLD.
_Arn. _ Come on! I'm glad on't! I will show you, slaves,
How you should be commanded, and who led you 90
First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
Until I waved my banners from its height,
As you are bold within it.
[ARNOLD _mows down the foremost; the rest throw down their arms_.
_Soldiers_. Mercy! mercy!
_Arn. _ Then learn to grant it. Have I taught you _who_
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements?
_Soldiers_. We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive
A moment's error in the heat of conquest--
The conquest which you led to.
_Arn. _ Get you hence!
Hence to your quarters! you will find them fixed
In the Colonna palace.
_Olimp. _ (_aside_). In my father's 100
House!
_Arn. _ (_to the Soldiers_). Leave your arms; ye have no further need
Of such: the city's rendered. And mark well
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.
_Soldiers_ (_deposing their arms and departing_). We obey!
_Arn. _ (_to_ OLIMPIA). Lady, you are safe.
_Olimp. _ I should be so,
Had I a knife even; but it matters not--
Death hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,
Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
Upon destruction, shall my head be dashed,
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man! 110
_Arn. _ I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
Thine own, although I have not injured thee.
_Olimp. _ No! Thou hast only sacked my native land,--
No injury! --and made my father's house
A den of thieves! No injury! --this temple--
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
To be----but that shall never be!
[_She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds her robe round her,
and prepares to dash herself down on the side of
the Altar opposite to that where_ ARNOLD _stands_.
_Arn. _ Hold! hold!
I swear.
_Olimp. _ Spare thine already forfeit soul
A perjury for which even Hell would loathe thee. 120
I know thee.
_Arn. _ No, thou know'st me not; I am not
Of these men, though----
_Olimp. _ I judge thee by thy mates;
It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have of me,
And here, upon the marble of this temple,
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
I offer him a blood less holy
But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
A redeemed infant) than the holy water 130
The saints have sanctified!
[OLIMPIA _waves her hand to_ ARNOLD _with disdain, and
dashes herself on the pavement from the Altar_.
_Arn. _ Eternal God!
I feel thee now! Help! help! she's gone.
_Caes. _ (_approaches_). I am here.
_Arn. _ Thou! but oh, save her!
_Caes. _ (_assisting him to raise_ OLIMPIA). She hath done it well!
The leap was serious.
_Arn. _ Oh! she is lifeless!
_Caes. _ If
She be so, I have nought to do with that:
The resurrection is beyond me.
_Arn. _ Slave!
_Caes. _ Aye, slave or master, 'tis all one: methinks
Good words, however, are as well at times.
_Arn. _ Words! --Canst thou aid her?
_Caes. _ I will try. A sprinkling
Of that same holy water may be useful. 140
[_He brings some in his helmet from the font_.
_Arn. _ 'Tis mixed with blood.
_Caes. _ There is no cleaner now
In Rome.
_Arn. _ How pale! how beautiful! how lifeless!
Alive or dead, thou Essence of all Beauty,
I love but thee!
_Caes. _ Even so Achilles loved
Penthesilea;[249] with his form it seems
You have his heart, and yet it was no soft one.
_Arn. _ She breathes! But no, 'twas nothing, or the last
Faint flutter Life disputes with Death.
_Caes. _ She breathes.
_Arn. _ _Thou_ say'st it? Then 'tis truth.
_Caes. _ You do me right--
The Devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed: 150
He hath an ignorant audience.
_Arn. _ (_without attending to him_). Yes! her heart beats.
Alas! that the first beat of the only heart
I ever wished to beat with mine should vibrate
To an assassin's pulse.
_Caes. _ A sage reflection,
But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall we bear her?
I say she lives.
_Arn. _ And will she live?
_Cas. _ As much
As dust can.
_Arn. _ Then she is dead!
_Caes. _ Bah! bah! You are so,
And do not know it. She will come to life--
Such as you think so, such as you now are;
But we must work by human means.
_Arn. _ We will 160
Convey her unto the Colonna palace,
Where I have pitched my banner.
_Caes. _ Come then! raise her up!
_Arn. _ Softly!
_Caes. _ As softly as they bear the dead,
Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.
_Arn. _ But doth she live indeed?
_Caes. _ Nay, never fear!
But, if you rue it after, blame not me.
_Arn. _ Let her but live!
_Caes. _ The Spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office:--'tis not oft 170
I am employed in such; but you perceive
How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now _I_ desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex. [250]
_Arn. _ Thou!
_Caes. _ I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.
_Arn. _ Rival!
_Caes. _ I could be one right formidable;
But since I slew the seven husbands of 180
Tobias' future bride (and after all
Was smoked out by some incense),[251] I have laid
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
Of gaining, or--what is more difficult--
Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
The rub! at least to mortals.
_Arn. _ Prithee, peace!
Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!
_Caes. _ Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor
For Lucifer and Venus.
_Arn. _ To the palace
Colonna, as I told you!
_Caes. _ Oh! I know 190
My way through Rome.
_Arn. _ Now onward, onward! Gently!
[_Exeunt, bearing_ OLIMPIA. _The scene closes_.
PART III.
SCENE I. --_A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but
smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates_.
_Chorus_.
I.
The wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!
II.
The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun:[dt]
With us she is but a winter's flower,
The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, 10
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.
III.
And when the spring comes with her host
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.
IV.
Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December--
The morning star of all the flowers,
The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours; 20
Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget
The virgin--virgin Violet.
_Enter_ CAESAR.
_Caes. _ (_singing_).
The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,
The steed bites the bridle,
The casque's on the wall.
There's rest for the rover;
But his armour is rusty,
And the veteran grows crusty,
As he yawns in the hall. 30
He drinks--but what's drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.
_Chorus_.
But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly
To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble 40
With birds from their nest.
_Caes_.
Oh! shadow of Glory!
Dim image of War!
But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,
Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder
And quake for their race.
When the lion was young, 50
In the pride of his might,
Then 'twas sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;
To go forth, with a pine
For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine[du]
At the foaming behemoth;
While man was in stature
As towers in our time,
The first born of Nature, 60
And, like her, sublime!
_Chorus_.
But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover
Have sought their home:
They are happy, and we rejoice;
Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!
[_Exeunt the Peasantry, singing_.
FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF _THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED_.
_Chorus_.
When the merry bells are ringing,
And the peasant girls are singing,
And the early flowers are flinging
Their odours in the air;
And the honey bee is clinging
To the buds; and birds are winging
Their way, pair by pair:
Then the earth looks free from trouble
With the brightness of a bubble:
Though I did not make it, 10
I could breathe on and break it;
But too much I scorn it,
Or else I would mourn it,
To see despots and slaves
Playing o'er their own graves.
_Enter_ COUNT ARNOLD.
{_Mem. _ Jealous--Arnold of Caesar.
{Olympia at first not liking Caesar
{--then? --Arnold jealous of himself
{under his former figure, owing to
{the power of intellect, etc. , etc. , etc.
_Arnold_. You are merry, Sir--what? singing too?
_Caesar_. It is
The land of Song--and Canticles you know
Were once my avocation.
_Arn. _ Nothing moves you;
You scoff even at your own calamity--
And such calamity! how wert thou fallen 20
Son of the Morning! and yet Lucifer
Can smile.
_Caes. _ His shape can--would you have me weep,
In the fair form I wear, to please you?
_Arn. _ Ah!
_Caes. _ You are grave--what have you on your spirit!
_Arn. _ Nothing.
_Caes. _ How mortals lie by instinct! If you ask
A disappointed courtier--What's the matter?
"Nothing"--an outshone Beauty what has made
Her smooth brow crisp--"Oh, Nothing! "--a young heir
When his Sire has recovered from the Gout,
What ails him? "Nothing! " or a Monarch who 30
Has heard the truth, and looks imperial on it--
What clouds his royal aspect? "Nothing," "Nothing! "
Nothing--eternal nothing--of these nothings
All are a lie--for all to them are much!
And they themselves alone the real "Nothings. "
Your present Nothing, too, is something to you--
What is it?
_Arn. _ Know you not?
_Caes. _ I only know
What I desire to know! and will not waste
Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with it!
If you seek aid from me--or else be silent. 40
And eat your thoughts--till they breed snakes within you.
_Arn. _ Olimpia!
_Caes. _ I thought as much--go on.
_Arn. _ I thought she had loved me.
_Caes. _ Blessings on your Creed!
What a good Christian you were found to be!
But what cold Sceptic hath appalled your faith
And transubstantiated to crumbs again
The _body_ of your Credence?
_Arn. _ No one--but--
Each day--each hour--each minute shows me more
And more she loves me not--
_Caes. _ Doth she rebel?
_Arn. _ No, she is calm, and meek, and silent with me, 50
And coldly dutiful, and proudly patient--
Endures my Love--not meets it.
_Caes. _ That seems strange.
You are beautiful and brave! the first is much
For passion--and the rest for Vanity.
_Arn. _ I saved her life, too; and her Father's life,
And Father's house from ashes.
_Caes. _ These are nothing.
You seek for Gratitude--the Philosopher's stone.
_Arn. _ And find it not.
_Caes. _ You cannot find what is not.
But _found_ would it content you? would you owe
To thankfulness what you desire from Passion? 60
No! No! you would be _loved_--what you call loved--
_Self-loved_--loved for _yourself_--for neither health,
Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor rank, nor beauty--
For these you may be stript of--but _beloved_
As an abstraction--for--you know not what!
These are the wishes of a moderate lover--
And _so_ you love.
_Arn. _ Ah! could I be beloved,
Would I ask wherefore?
_Caes. _ Yes! and not believe
The answer--You are jealous.
_Arn. _ And of whom?
_Caes. _ It may be of yourself,[252] for Jealousy 70
Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb
Is mighty--as you mortals deem--and to
Your little Universe seems universal;
But, great as He appears, and is to you,
The smallest cloud--the slightest vapour of
Your humid earth enables you to look
Upon a Sky which you revile as dull;
Though your eyes dare not gaze on it when cloudless.
Nothing can blind a mortal like to light.
Now Love in you is as the Sun--a thing 80
Beyond you--and your Jealousy's of Earth--
A cloud of your own raising.
_Arn. _ Not so always!
There is a cause at times.
_Caes. _ Oh, yes! when atoms jostle,
The System is in peril. But I speak
Of things you know not. Well, to earth again!
This precious thing of dust--this bright Olimpia--
This marvellous Virgin, is a marble maid--
An Idol, but a cold one to your heat
Promethean, and unkindled by your torch.
_Arn. _ Slave!
_Caes. _ In the victor's Chariot, when Rome triumphed, 90
There was a Slave of yore to tell him truth!
You are a Conqueror--command your Slave.
_Arn. _ Teach me the way to win the woman's love.
_Caes. _ Leave her.
_Arn. _ Where that the path--I'd not pursue it.
_Caes. _ No doubt! for if you did, the remedy
Would be for a disease already cured.
_Arn. _ All wretched as I am, I would not quit
My unrequited love, for all that's happy.
_Caes. _ You have possessed the woman--still possess.
What need you more?
_Arn. _ To be myself possessed-- 100
To be her heart as she is mine.
FOOTNOTES:
[201] {473}[_The Three Brothers_, by Joshua Pickersgill, junior, was
published in 1803. There is no copy of _The Three Brothers_ in the
British Museum. The following extracts are taken from a copy in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford (vol. 4, cap. xi. pp. 229-350):--
"Arnaud, the natural son of the Marquis de Souvricour, was a child
'extraordinary in Beauty and Intellect. ' When travelling with his
parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years old, he was shot at by
banditti, and forsaken by his parents. The Captain of the band nursed
him. 'But those perfections to which Arnaud owed his existence, ceased
to adorn it. The ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had
dislocated it; by the latter misadventure his spine likewise was so
fatally injured as to be irrecoverable to its pristine uprightness.
Injuries so compound confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see a
creature so charming, at once deformed by a crooked back and an
excrescent shoulder. ' Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents.
'The bitterest consciousness of his deformity was derived from their
indelicate, though, perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct. . . . Of his
person he continued to speak as of an abhorrent enemy.
