Count Alarcos; a Tragedy Part 4

I:2:75 COUN.

My Lords, will see our gardens?

I:2:76 SIDO.

We are favoured.

We wait upon your steps.

I:2:77 LEON.

And feel that roses Will spring beneath them.

I:2:78 COUN.

You are an adept, sir, In our gay science.

I:2:79 LEON.

Faith, I stole it, lady, From a loose Troubadour Sidonia keeps To write his sonnets.

[Exeunt omnes.]

SCENE 3

A Chamber.

[Enter ALARCOS and PAGE.]

I:3:1 PAGE.

Will you wait here, my Lord?

I:3:2 ALAR.

I will, sir Page.

[Exit PAGE.]

The Bishop of Ossuna: what would he?

He scents the prosperous ever. Ay! they'll cl.u.s.ter Round this new hive. But I'll not house them yet.

Marry, I know them all; but me they know, As mountains might the leaping stream that meets The ocean as a river. Time and exile Change our life's course, but is its flow less deep Because it is more calm? I've seen to-day Might stir its pools. What if my phantom flung A shade on their bright path? 'Tis closed to me Although the goal's a crown. She loved me once; Now swoons, and now the match is off. She's true.

But I have clipped the heart that once could soar High as her own! Dreams, dreams! And yet entranced, Unto the fair phantasma that is fled, My struggling fancy clings; for there are hours When memory with her signet stamps the brain With an undying mint; and these were such, When high Ambition and enraptured Love, Twin Genii of my daring destiny, Bore on my sweeping life with their full wing, Like an angelic host:

[In the distance enter a lady veiled.]

Is this their priest?

Burgos unchanged I see.

[Advancing towards her.]

A needless veil To one prophetic of thy charms, fair lady.

And yet they fall on an ungracious eye.

[Withdraws the veil.]

Solisa!

I:3:3 SOL.

Yes! Solisa; once again O say Solisa! let that long lost voice Breathe with a name too faithful!

I:3:4 ALAR.

Oh! what tones, What mazing sight is this! The spellbound forms Of my first youth rise up from the abyss Of opening time. I listen to a voice That bursts the sepulchre of buried hope Like an immortal trumpet.

I:3:5 SOL.

Thou hast granted, Mary, my prayers!

I:3:6 ALAR.

Solisa, my Solisa!

I:3:7 SOL.

Thine, thine, Alarcos. But thou: whose art thou?

I:3:8 ALAR.

Within this chamber is my memory bound; I have no thought, no consciousness beyond Its precious walls.

I:3:9 SOL.

Thus did he look, thus speak, When to my heart he clung, and I to him Breathed my first love--and last.

I:3:10 ALAR.

Alas! alas!

Woe to thy Mother, maiden.

I:3:11 SOL.

She has found That which I oft have prayed for.

I:3:12 ALAR.

But not found A doom more dark than ours.

I:3:13 SOL.

I sent for thee, To tell thee why I sent for thee; yet why, Alas! I know not. Was it but to look Alone upon the face that once was mine?

This morn it was so grave. O! was it woe, Or but indifference, that inspired that brow That seemed so cold and stately? Was it hate?

O! tell me anything, but that to thee I am a thing of nothingness.

I:3:14 ALAR.

O spare!

Spare me such words of torture.

I:3:15 SOL.

Could I feel Thou didst not hate me, that my image brought At least a gentle, if not tender thoughts, I'd be content. I cannot live to think, After the past, that we should meet again And change cold looks. We are not strangers, say At least we are not strangers?