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  • The Night-Scene[;] A Dramatic Fragment

The Night-Scene[;] A Dramatic Fragment

  1. 1Sandoval. You loved the daughter of Don Manrique?
  1. 2Earl Henry. Loved?
  1. 3Sand. Did you not say you wooed her?
  1. 4Earl H. Once I loved
  2. 5Her whom I dared not woo!
  1. 6Sand. And wooed, perchance,
  2. 7One whom you loved not!
  1. 8Earl H. Oh! I were most base,
  2. 9Not loving Oropeza. True, I wooed her,
  3. 10Hoping to heal a deeper wound; but she
  4. 11Met my advances with impassioned pride,
  5. 12That kindled love with love. And when her sire,
  6. 13Who in his dream of hope already grasped
  7. 14The golden circlet in his hand, rejected
  8. 15My suit with insult, and in memory
  9. 16Of ancient feuds poured curses on my head,
  10. 17Her blessings overtook and baffled them!
  11. 18But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance
  12. 19Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.
  1. 20Sand. Anxiously, Henry! reasoning anxiously.
  2. 21But Oropeza--
  1. 22Earl H. Blessings gather round her!
  2. 23Within this wood there winds a secret passage,
  3. 24Beneath the walls, which opens out at length
  4. 25Into the gloomiest covert of the garden.--
  5. 26The night ere my departure to the army,
  6. 27She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom,
  7. 28And to that covert by a silent stream,
  8. 29Which, with one star reflected near its marge,
  9. 30Was the sole object visible around me.
  10. 31No leaflet stirred; the air was almost sultry;
  11. 32So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us!
  12. 33No leaflet stirred;--yet pleasure hung upon
  13. 34The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.
  14. 35A little further on an arbour stood,
  15. 36Fragrant with flowering trees--I well remember
  16. 37What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness
  17. 38Their snow-white blossoms made--thither she led me,
  18. 39To that sweet bower! Then Oropeza trembled--
  19. 40I heard her heart beat--if 'twere not my own.
  1. 41Sand. A rude and soaring note, my friend!
  1. 42Earl H. Oh! no!
  2. 43I have small memory of aught but pleasure.
  3. 44The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams
  4. 45Still flowing, still were lost in those of love:
  5. 46So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature,
  6. 47Fleeing from Pain, sheltered herself in Joy.
  7. 48The stars above our heads were dim and steady,
  8. 49Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us:
  9. 50We were all life, each atom of our frames
  10. 51A living soul--I vowed to die for her:
  11. 52With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
  12. 53Relapses into blessedness, I vowed it:
  13. 54That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,
  14. 55A murmur breathed against a lady's ear.
  15. 56Oh! there is joy above the name of pleasure.
  16. 57Deep self-possession, an intense repose.
  1. 58Sand. (with a sarcastic smile). No other than as eastern sages
  2. 59paint,
  3. 60The God, who floats upon a Lotos leaf,
  4. 61Dreams for a thousand ages; then awaking,
  5. 62Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble,
  6. 63Relapses into bliss.
  1. 64Earl H. Ah! was that bliss
  2. 65Feared as an alien, and too vast for man?
  3. 66For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
  4. 67Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead.
  5. 68I caught her arms; the veins were swelling on them.
  6. 69Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice;--
  7. 70'Oh! what if all betray me? what if thou?'
  8. 71I swore, and with an inward thought that seemed
  9. 72The purpose and the substance of my being,
  10. 73I swore to her, that were she red with guilt,
  11. 74I would exchange my unblenched state with hers.--
  12. 75Friend! by that winding passage, to that bower
  13. 76I now will go--all objects there will teach me
  14. 77Unwavering love, and singleness of heart.
  15. 78Go, Sandoval! I am prepared to meet her--
  16. 79Say nothing of me--I myself will seek her--
  17. 80Nay, leave me, friend! I cannot bear the torment
  18. 81And keen inquiry of that scanning eye.--
  1. 82[Earl Henry retires into the wood.
  1. 83Sand. (alone). O Henry! always striv'st thou to be great
  2. 84By thine own act--yet art thou never great
  3. 85But by the inspiration of great passion.
  4. 86The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
  5. 87And shape themselves; from Earth to Heaven they stand,
  6. 88As though they were the pillars of a temple,
  7. 89Built by Omnipotence in its own honour!
  8. 90But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
  9. 91Is fled: the mighty columns were but sand,
  10. 92And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins!