The wind may change.

Never yet did mariner Put up to patron saint such prayers for prosperous And pleasant breezes, as 1 call upon you, Ye tutelar saints of my own city! which Ye love not with more holy love than I, To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves, And waken Auster, sovereign of the tempest ! Till the sea dash me back on my own shore A broken corse upon the barren Lido, Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt The land I love, and never shall see more! MARINO.

And wish you this with me beside you?

JACOPO FOSCARI.

No

No-not for thee, too good, too kind! May'st thou
Live long to be a mother to those children
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives
Of such support! But for myself alone,

May all the winds of heaven howl down the gulf,
And tear the vessel, till the mariners,
Appall'd, turn their despairing eyes on me,
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then

Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering

To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me
Will be more merciful than man, and bear me,
Dead, but still bear me to a native grave,
From fisher's hands upon the desolate strand,
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er received
One lacerated like the heart which then
Will be-But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?

MARINA.

To man thyself, I trust, with time, to master
Such useless passion. Until now thou wert
A sufferer, but not a loud one: why,
What is this to the things thou hast borne in
Imprisonment and actual torture?

JACOPO FOSCARI.

[Officer presents him with wate

Thus leave me.

DOGE.

Daughter!

MARINA.

Hold thy peace, old man'

OFFICER.

We must remove the body.

MARINA.

OFFICER.

I niust

LOREDANO.

Let him call up into life

My sire and uncle-I consent. Men may,
Even aged men, be, or appear to be,
Sires of hundred sons, but cannot kindle
An atom of their ancestors from earth.
The victims are not equal: he has seen
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I
My sires by violent and mysterious maladies.
I used no poison, bribed no subtle master
Of the destructive art of healing, to
Shorten the path to the eternal cure.
His sons, and he had four, are dead, without
My dabbling in vile drugs.

BARBARIGO.

Was Carmagnuola

LOREDANO.

He was the safeguard of the city. In early life its foe, but, in his manhood, Its saviour first, then victim.

BARBARIGO.

Ah! that seems

The penalty of saving cities. He
Whom we now act against not only saved
Our own, but added others to her sway.

LOREDANO.

The Romans (and we ape them) gave a crown
To him who took a city; and they gave

A crown to him who saved a citizen
In battle the rewards are equal.

Now,

If we should measure forth the cities taken
By the Doge Foscari, with citizens
Destroy'd by him, or through him, the account
Were fearfully against him, although narrow'd
To private havoc, such as between him
And my dead father.

And yet he seems

Ere you sleep with

LOREDANO.

And so he seem'd not long

And foreign traitor?

BARBARIGO. The attainted

LOREDANO.

Even so when he,

"The Ten,"

OFFICER.

With desperate firmness.

In presence of another he says little,

But I perceive his lips move now and then;

And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining Apartment, mutter forth the words-" My son !" Scarce audibly. I must proceed.

BARBARIGO.

Will move all Venice in his favour.

LOREDANO.

This stroke

With a selected giunta from the senate
Of twenty-five of the best born patricians,
Having deliberated on the state

Of the republic, and the o'erwhelming cares
Which, at this moment, doubly must oppress
Your years, so long devoted to your country,
Have judged it fitting, with all reverence,
Now to solicit from your wisdom (which
Upon reflection must accord in this),
The resignation of the ducal ring,

Which you have worn so long and venerably;
And, to prove that they are not ungrateful, nor
Cold to your years and services, they add
An appanage of twenty hundred golden
Ducats, to make retirement not less splendid
Than should become a sovereign's retreat.

I shall not need so many seconds.

CHIEF OF THE TEN.

We

Will now retire.

DOGE.

Stay! Four and twenty hours Will alter nothing which I have to say.

Speak!

CHIEF OF THE TEN.

DOGE.

When I twice before reiterated My wish to abdicate, it was refused me; And not alone refused, but ye exacted An oath from me that I would never more Renew this instance. I have sworn to die In full exertion of the functions which My country call'd me here to exercise, According to my honour and my conscienceI cannot break my oath.

CHIEF OF THE TEN.
Reduce us not

To the alternative of a decree,
Instead of your compliance.

DOGE.

Providence Prolongs my days, to prove and chasten me; have no right to reproach my length

But ye