XIV.

FOSCARI.

LET us lift up the curtain, and observe

What passes in that chamber. Now a sigh,

And now a groan is heard. Then all is still.

Twenty are sitting as in judgment there;

Men who have served their country, and grown grey

In governments and distant embassies,

Men eminent alike in war and

peace;

Such as in effigy shall long adorn

The walls of Venice to shew what she has been!

Their garb is black, and black the arras is,

And sad the general aspect. Yet their looks

Are calm, are cheerful; nothing there like grief,
Nothing or harsh, or cruel. Still that noise,

That low and dismal moaning.

Half withdrawn,

A little to the left, sits one in crimson,

A venerable man, fourscore and upward.

Cold drops of sweat stand on his furrowed brow.
His hands are clenched; his eyes half shut and glazed ;

His shrunk and withered limbs rigid as marble.

'Tis Foscari, the Doge. And there is one,

A young man, lying at his feet, stretched out

In torture. 'Tis his son, his only one;

'Tis Giacomo, the blessing of his age,

(Say, has he lived for this?) accused of murder,

The murder of the Senator Donato.

Last night the proofs, if proofs they are, were dropt

Into the lion's mouth, the mouth of brass,

That gapes

and

gorges; and the Doge himself,

('Tis not the first time he has filled this office,)

Must sit and look on a beloved Son

Suffering the Question.

Twice, to die in peace,

To save a falling house, and turn the hearts

Of his fell Adversaries, those who now,

Like hell-hounds in full cry, are running down

His last of four, twice did he ask their leave

To lay aside the Crown, and they refused him,

An oath exacting, never more to ask it;

And there he sits, a spectacle of woe,

By them, his rivals in the State, compelled,

Such the refinement of their cruelty,

To keep the place he sighed for.

Once again

The screw is turned; and, as it turns, the Son

Looks up, and in a faint and broken accent,

Murmurs "My Father!" The old man shrinks back,

And in his mantle muffles up his face.

"Art thou not guilty?" says a voice, that once

Would greet the Sufferer long before they met,

And on his ear strike like a pleasant music,

"Art thou not guilty?"-"No! Indeed I am not !"

But all is unavailing. In that Court

Groans are confessions; Patience, Fortitude,

The work of Magic; and, released, upheld,

For Condemnation, from his Father's lips

He hears the sentence, "Banishment to Candia.

His wife, his boys, and his disconsolate parents!

Gone in the night-unseen, alas, of any

Without a word, a look of tenderness,

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