Ter. Yes, it is truth: saw you his countenance?
How rage, remorse, and scorn, and stupid fear
Displaced each other with swift interchanges?
O that I had indeed the sorcerer's power.-
I would call up before thine eyes the image
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first-born!
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips!
That spiritual and almost heavenly light
In his commanding eye-his mien heroic,
Virtue's own native heraldry! to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
Whene'er he gladden'd, how the gladness spread
Wide round him! and when oft with swelling tears,
Flash'd through by indignation, he bewail'd -
The wrongs of Belgium's martyr'd patriots,
Oh, what a grief was there-for joy to envy,
Or gaze upon enamour'd!
Recall that morning when we knelt together,
And thou didst bless our loves! O even now,
Even now, my sire! to thy mind's eye present him, As at that moment he rose up before thee,
Stately, with beaming look! Place, place beside him,
Ordonio's dark perturbed countenance!
Then bid me (oh thou could'st not) bid me turn
From him, the joy, the triumph of our kind!
To take in exchange that brooding man, who never
Lifts up his eye from the earth unless to scowl.
Val. Ungrateful woman! I have tried to stifle An old man's passion! was it not enough,
That thou hast made my son a restless man,
Banish'd his health, and half unhing'd his reason;
But that thou wilt insult him with suspicion!
And toil to blast his honour? I am old,
Hateful entreaties from a voice we love!
Enter a peasant and presents a letter to Valdez. Val. (reading it.) "He dares not venture hither!" Why what can this mean?
"Lest the Familiars of the Inquisition,
That watch around my gates, should intercept him;
But he conjures me, that without delay
I hasten to him-for my own sake entreats me
To guard from danger him I hold imprison'd-
He will reveal a secret, the joy of which
Will even outweigh the sorrow."-Why what can this Perchance it is some Moorish stratagem,
To have in me a hostage for his safety.
Nay, that they dare not! Ho! collect my servants! I will go thither-let them arm themselves.
Ter. (alone.) The moon is high in heaven, and all
Yet anxious listener! I have seem'd to hear
A low dead thunder mutter through the night,
As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep.
O Alvar! Alvar! that they could return.
Those blessed days that imitated heaven,
When we two wont to walk at even tide;
When we saw naught but beauty; when we heard
The voice of that Almighty One who loved us
In every gale that breathed, and wave that murmur'd!
O we have listen'd, even till high-wrought pleasure
Hath half assumed the countenance of grief,
And the deep sigh seemed to heave up a weight
Of bliss, that pressed too heavy on the heart.
[a pause.
And this majestic Moor, seems he not one
Who oft and long communing with my Alvar,
Hath drunk in kindred lustre from his presence,
And guides me to him with reflected light?
What if in yon dark dungeon coward treachery Be groping for him with envenomed poniard— Hence womanish fears, traitors to love and dutyI'll free him.
SCENE III. The mountains by moonlight.
Alhadra alone in a Moorish dress.
Alh. Yon hanging woods, that touch'd by autumn
As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold;
The flower-like woods, most lovely in decay,
The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands,
Lie in the silent moon-shine: and the owl,
(Strange! very strange!) the scritch-owl only wakes!
Sole voice, sole eye of all this world of beauty!
Unless, perhaps, she sing her screeching song
To a herd of wolves, that skulk athirst for blood.
Why such a thing am I?—Where are these men?
I need the sympathy of human faces,
To beat away this deep contempt for all things,
Which quenches my revenge. Oh! would to Alla,
The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed
To bring me food! or rather that my soul
Could drink in life from the universal air!
It were a lot divine in some small skiff
Along some ocean's boundless solitude,
To float for ever with a careless course,
And think myself the only being alive!
My children!-Isidore's children!-son of Valdez, This hath new strung mine arm. Thou coward tyrant!
To stupify a woman's heart with anguish,
Till she forgot-even that she was a mother!
[She fixes her eye on the earth. Then drop in one
after another, from different parts of the stage,
a considerable number of Morescoes, all in
Moorish garments and Moorish armour. They
form a circle at a distance round Alhadra, and
remain silent till Naomi enters.
Nao. Woman! May Alla and the prophet bless thee!
We have obeyed thy call. Where is our chief? And why didst thou enjoin these Moorish garments? Alh. (raising her eyes and looking round on the
circle.) Warriors of Mahomet! faithful in
the battle!
My countrymen! Come ye prepared to work
An honourable deed? And would ye work it
In the slave's garb? Curse on those christian robes!
They are spell-blasted: and whoever wears them,
His arm shrinks wither'd, his heart melts away,
And his bones soften.
Alh. This night I went from forth my house, and
His children all asleep: and he was living!
And I return'd and found them still asleep,
Sleep on, poor babes! not one of you doth know
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