His Portugal-into the Spaniard's hands.
O wherefore was I doom'd to overlive it!

Quev. An evil day indeed; and worse have follow'd.
For you, at least, they brought but little good.

Cam. The sun was set that cheer'd my day, and now
The dark and cheerless eve came closing in.

So praised, so honour'd once, and now forsaken,-
Once rich, now poor-desert repaid with want.
Such is the course of the world!-

One friend alone remain'd—he was a slave.
Oft had I call'd him in my wrath, black dog;
But now, when fortune's current had run dry,
It was his daily earnings that sustain'd me;
'Twas he that nursed me, sat beside my bed,
And spoke to me with thousand words of kindness.
He begg'd for me when his own strength gave way,
And died for me at last-the poor black creature.
God saw, and will reward him! Rest in peace,
Thou last of those that loved me upon earth!
O vain is fortune: life an empty knell;

Who rests within the grave alone sleeps well!

Quev. (aside.) Methinks the time is come to speak my purpose. (Aloud,) Ah! my poor friend, ill has it fared with thee.

Now listen to my errand-grant my prayer.

Forsake this hospital: become my inmate.
My house is furnish'd well for many guests,
And I am rich. Camoëns, come to me!
Sleep off with me the weary toil of life,
And share with me my superfluity.
Camoëns, dost thou hear me?

Cam. (hesitating.) I-thy guest !—

Thou mean'st it well, Quevedo. I believe

Thou mean'st it well. I thank thee for thy kindness.
But here I am contented. Leave me here ;

Why should I cross thy threshold but to be

A burden unto thee, as to myself?

Quev. The friend a burden to the friend! Oh, no!

Nay, let me tell thee candidly, thy counsel

And thy assistance may be useful to me.

Cam. My aid? My counsel? How can I assist thee?
Quev. Friend, hear my narrative, and then decide.

I have a son, my hope and pride; he grew

To blooming youth beside me: I beheld him

In fancy adding to his father's stores,
And building up the fabric I had founded;
But suddenly, as if by madness seized,
Did he forsake the peaceful path of trade:
Despising gold, he revels among parchments,
And lives and moves in Art and Poesy!

Cam. Madness! Sheer madness!
Quev.

So I told him-but

He hears no warning, no advice; he thinks
The Muses' service must be paradise.

Camoens. So dream they all; and yet 'tis but a dream!
Quev. In vain I have besieged him with entreaties-

My words were wasted: this it is that grieves me.

His madness seems incurable; and yet

Could he but see how thou has been rewarded

See thee, the model he admires-and here

Perhaps

Cam. He shall behold me. Send him hither:
He shall be cured of his insane delusion-
My fate shall be a solemn warning to him.

It may be so. Farewell.

Quev. Farewell, good friend. (Aside.) So that succeeded well.

SCENE III.

Cam. (after a pause.) I am exhausted. Frost and fever chase Each other through me. Twilight dims my eye.

Is not this death that doth announce his coming,
Ere from my lips he kiss the breath away?

Catharine is dead. Hassan is gone. I stand
Forlorn upon the margin of the grave.
The simple citizen, in peaceful toil,
Contented to add day to day, and walk
With modest step the path his fathers trode-
He, when the wing of Death is waved above him,
Expires amidst the circle of his own,

In his wife's arms, whom he had loved on earth;
Amidst the children whom she bore to him;
By all around beloved-by all lamented;
And, when the latest breath of life departs,
Love's gentle hand is near to close his eye.
But I-O madness that hath blinded me-
I lived alone through life-alone I die!

Methought I bore a treasure, when the storm
On China's shores our quivering vessel caught,
And crack'd its haughty masts like wither'd reeds,
And dash'd its hull against the rocks-a treasure
Which high above the waves my hand upheld.
I let the tempest sweep my stores away,
And bore my Lusiad smiling to the land.
Unhappy strain, first offspring of my soul;
Unhappy wreath, that bound the poet's brow!
For you I bade defiance to my fate-
For you renounced the peaceful joys of life-
Through you, by sad experience, I have learn'd

There is no real bliss,-except to dwell

In reconcilement with reality,

And live unenvied and unenvying!

(After a pause.) I freeze! a shudder runs through all my bones. Camoëns dies. Who, at this latest hour,

Stands by him to refresh or to console?

The past is night-the future, too, is night

The spirit broken-strength and faith declining

The wreaths of glory withering in the dust.
What has my life been? Madness and delusion.
And now the vision which allured me on
Fades into vapour; and a voice proclaims
The fruit of dreaming life must be a dream!

[Sinks back exhausted in the arm-chair.

Perez. 'Twas here, they said-'twas here that I should find him-
And here he is. 'Tis he indeed. So floated

His form in dreams before me-bolder only-
His eye resplendent with a brighter fire,
And proudly eminent that sunken head.

No matter: It is he. If age have bent him,

His visage bears the stamp of his high strain.

Angels have kiss'd that mouth!

(Advancing towards CAMOËNS.) Don Luis, I salute thee.

Speak, who art thou?

Look on me.

Cam.
Had you been one hour later,
You had come too late. Come nearer.
Death's angel stands already by my side.
My time is wellnigh run. But you shall hear
A dying man's last counsel, and preserve it
Deep in your youthful breast.

Perez.

It cannot be !

Cam. Pause ere you choose: the choice is one for life. You are young; your soul, a stranger yet to earth,

Is drawn by natural longings to the skies.

And because poesy is dear to thee,

It springs, as doth thy soul itself from heaven.

But love ensures not strength; intelligence

Is not creation; search, discovery

Perez. I know well to receive is not to give! Cam. Then since it is so, search into thy heart! Whate'er incites thee-be it vanity ;

The child's propensity to imitation ;

The fever'd action of too youthful blood ;

The irritation of excited nerves

Be not deceived. The player's art, the speaker's
May be acquired; but nature doth accomplish

The poet's soul. His greatness is inborn.

It comes from heaven, even as it heavenward tends.

Perez. (After a short pause.) I know not what I am; but how I have Become the thing I am, I can unfold.

A quiet boy-books my delight-I grew

Up dreaming-the soul's eye turn'd inwardly,

I wander'd blindly on through life.

To me

The calm of moonlight was companionship;
The solitudes spoke to me; the loud voice
Of busy day died on my ear; my heart
Turn'd with aversion from my father's calling.
I felt a longing, but it had no name-
When all at once the Lusiad's strain was heard,
And from my spirit's budding green, broke forth

The silently matured and shrinking flower.

No more of doubt:-No room for choice. I read
In my soul's depth these words of fire engraven :-
"Him shalt thou follow!" Every pulse re-echo'd,
"Him shalt thou follow!" Blindly I obey'd.
Then tell me, am I-am I-not a poet?

Cam. By Heaven, thine eye doth flash as if thou wert!
Perchance-Yet were it true-O yet return-
Return unto the path which thou hast quitted.
Fate means thee well. Follow thy calling. Trust
To him who speaks from sad experience,

Far from the poet's path dwells happiness.

Perez. Let me deserve, and I can bear to want it.
Cam. The phantom of renown perhaps allures thee;
Thou would'st adorn thy brow with laurels, set
Upon thy haughty head a starry crown;
But garlands wither, stars become extinct :
Will fame compensate for life thrown away?
What is't to him who slumbers in the grave,
That on his monument is graven, not
That he lived happily, but that he lived!

Perez. I've seen the laurel bind unworthy brows,
I've seen the garland of desert stript leafless,
Young as I am. It is not glory lures me:

My thoughts, my longings, are for higher things.
Cam. Higher than riches, happiness, renown?
What seek'st thou? What dost covet more?

Perez.

Long years
I've borne the feeling in my breast conceal'd;
To thee, th' initiated, I may confess
The high and lofty wish that lives within me.
Not happiness-not laurels; but to be
An instrument to elevate the world-

The dawn that heralds the victorious sun ;-
In every breast that radiant fire to kindle,
That burns so starry clear within mine own;
Amidst the din of factions to impart

Strength to the cause of right, to truth a voice.
This surely is no dream, no fantasy;

And this my mission is, my destiny.

Cam. O youthful hope! on seraph wings upborne,

How little reck'st thou of the course of the world!

Thou would'st uplift men's looks to heaven, would'st kindle

Their inspiration? Who can kindle ice,

Or pierce with harmonies the deaf-born ear?

Perez. Thou, thou hast done it. O believe my words!

For never did I feel as at this hour:

Believe me; God himself speaks from my lips-
Thou hast inspired them; thy heroic strain,
Even as its magic overmaster'd me,

Has roused, inflamed, and animated thousands.

In thousand hearts the thought of thee lives on;
And though thine earthly part must disappear,
Thou hast lived;-and thou wilt live for after ages;
For the true poet's work can never die.

Cam. (with agitation.) His eye is flashing, and his cheek is flush'd. Prophetic are his words. I feel my heart

Heave with triumphant consciousness of joy.

Has Heaven directed this kind youth to me?

(After a pause-relapsing into melancholy, and addressing PEREZ.)

Thy glance glides onward to the distant future.

But look upon the present. Look on me-
On me, the poet of the Lusiad-

The prey of want, the sport of persecution,
Expiring in an hospital. Even so-
The world rewards the poet's inspiration.
Then shun my path, O shun the poet's meed!
Perez. I shun it! No. If poverty and scorn
Be virtue's meed, then suffering is an honour;
The crown of thorns becomes a laurel wreath;
And death, even in an hospital, is glory.
Let me be like Camoëns; let me rouse
My nation from its sleep-exalt my age,
An end like his will have no terrors for me,
Had I but lived-had I but wrought like him!

[Aug.

Cam. (rousing himself.) By the grave's breath which dims mine eye already;

By all a poet's checker'd joys and griefs;

By all the holy visions that have haunted,

The dreams of victory that heaved his breast,

Thou wilt be such. So wilt thou live-so labour.

Not selfishness, not vanity impels thee,

But God himself hath call'd thee to the task.

Thine aim is towards the highest; and I feel

Thou wilt attain it, for thy heart is pure!

Perez. Attain it, say'st thou? I too long-Eternal heaven! O speak the truth! Say-shall I be a poet?

Cam. Thou art one.

Trust thyself. Think of this hour

When destiny deals hardly with thy life,

And poverty stands lowering in thy way.

Think that the words thy lips have breathed dispersed
The clouds before Camoëns' eye; that dying,

And by the gloomy night of doubt surrounded,

He felt his spirit by thy spirit roused,

And in thy youthful fire revived his own.

Think of this hour; think of the trembling hand

That consecrated thee to poesy,

And keep thy course. Life calls thee to the struggle.

Move on to thy meridian, rising sun,

For that of Camoëns drops into the grave.

Perez. Thou canst not perish; for thy lay survives thee,

And immortality invests thy name.

Cam. It doth: I feel its consecrating power.

I was a poet, and I was so wholly.

Why do I chide my sufferings? They were blessings :

God did implant them in my breast to teach me

The poet's heart must bleed before it ripens.

My auguries have been verified: my life
Has not like chaff been scatter'd to the wind;
Nor dies it with this span of time,-consoled,
I can approach the eternal throne, and feel

The crop is rising which my strains have sown.

My dreams are crown'd with immortality.

Perez. What means that look-what means that flashing eye?
Cam. Leave me alone. My spirit plumes her wings

And leaves behind earth's dark and cloudy sea.

She bears me upwards.

[He raises himself up, supported by PEREZ. While he speaks, a cloud descends upon the stage, amidst distant music. It separates, and displays a female figure, bearing in one hand a laurel wreath, in the other, the colours of Portugal, which she waves above CAMOËNS.

Sphere-like music sounds,