Be comforted! I know. I know it all, Look at me, brightest, And still I speak of love. And beautiful Lalage !-turn here thine eyes! Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen. Thou askest me that-and thus I answer thee Thus on my bended knee I answer thee [Kneeling. Sweet Lalage, I love thee-love thee — love thee; Thro' good and ill—thro' weal and woe I love thee. Not on God's altar, in any time or clime, Burned there a holier fire than burneth now Within my spirit for thee. And do I love? [Arising. Even for thy woes I love thee Thy beauty and thy woes. Lal. even for thy woes Alas, proud Earl, Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me! How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens Pure and reproachless of thy princely line, Thy wife, and with a tainted memory My seared and blighted name, how would it tally And with thy glory? Pol. Speak not to me of glory! I hate-I loathe the name; I do abhor The unsatisfactory and ideal thing. Art thou not Lalage and I Politian? Do I not love-art thou not beautiful What need we more? Ha! glory!-now speak not of it! By all I hold most sacred and most solemn By all my wishes now-my fears hereafter Descend together; and then - and then, per chance Lal. Why dost thou pause, Politian? Pol. And then, perchance, Arise together, Lalage, and roam The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest, And still Lal. Why dost thou pause, Politian? Pol. And still together-together. Lal. Now, Earl of Leicester, Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts I feel thou lovest me truly. Pol. Oh, Lalage! [Throwing himself upon his knee. And lovest thou me? Lal. Hist! hush within the gloom Of yonder trees methought a figure past A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiselessLike the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noise[Walks across and returns. less. I was mistaken; 't was but a giant bough Pol. My Lalage-my love! why art thou moved ? Not Conscience's self, Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it, Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night wind Is chilly, and these melancholy boughs Throw over all things a gloom. Lal. Politian ! Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land With which all tongues are busy-a land new found— Miraculously found by one of Genoa A thousand leagues within the golden west? A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine, And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds Of heaven untrammelled flow,-which air to breathe Pol. Oh, wilt thou-wilt thou Fly to that Paradise, my Lalage,—wilt thou Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten, And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all, Lal. Castiglione lives! Pol. A deed is to be done And he shall die! Lal. (after a pause). And-he-shall-die! Alas! Castiglione die? Who spoke the words? [Exit. Where am I? What was it he said ?-Politian ! Lest I behold thee not; thou couldst not go With those words upon thy lips. Oh, speak to me! To say how thou dost scorn-how thou dost hate My womanly weakness. Ha ha! thou art not gone! Oh, speak to me ! I knew thou wouldst not go! I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go. Villain, thou art not gone-thou mockest me! And thus I clutch thee-thus! is gone Gone-gone! Where am I?. very well! He is gone, he 'Tis well-tis So that the blade be keen-the blow be sure, 'Tis well, 'tis very well!-Alas! alas! V. The suburbs.-POLITIAN alone. Politian. This weakness grows upon me. faint, And much I fear me ill. It will not do I am To die ere I have lived!-Stay-stay thy hand, Baldazzar. That, knowing no cause of quarrel or of feud |