"Who will believe me? what shall I protest? How innocent, thus wretched? God of Gods, Strike me.. who most offend thee most defy .. Charoba most offends thee: strike me, hurl

That swell'd out black, like tendrils round their

vase

O Dalica! see here the royal feast!

See here the gorgeous robe! you little thought
How have the demons dyed that robe with death.
Where are ye, dear fond parents! when ye heard
My feet in childhood pat the palace-floor,
Ye started forth and kist away surprise :
Will ye now meet me? how, and where, and when?
And must I fill your bosom with my tears,
And, what I never have done, with your own?
Why have the Gods thus punisht me? what
harm

210

Have ever I done them? have I profaned
Their temples, askt too little, or too much?
Proud if they granted, griev'd if they withheld?
O mother! stand between your child and them!
Appease them, soothe them, soften their revenge,
Melt them to pity with maternal tears.
Alas, but if you can not! they themselves
Will then want pity rather than your child.
O Gebir! best of monarchs, best of men,
What realm hath ever thy firm even hand
Or lost by feebleness or held by force?
Behold thy cares and perils how repaid!
Behold the festive day, the nuptial hour!'

220

230

Thus raved Charoba: horror, grief, amaze, Pervaded all the host; all eyes were fixt; All stricken motionless and mute: the feast Was like the feast of Cepheus, when the sword Of Phineus, white with wonder, shook restrain'd, And the hilt rattled in his marble hand. She heard not, saw not, every sense was gone; One passion banisht all; dominion, praise, The world itself, was nothing. Senseless man ! What would thy fancy figure now from worlds? There is no world to those that grieve and love. She hung upon his bosom, prest his lips, Breath'd, and would feign it his that she resorb'd, She chafed the feathery softness of his veins,

Still clasping his, a sudden blush o'erspread Her pallid humid cheek, and disappear'd. 'Twas not the blush of shame; what shame has woe?

'Twas not the genuine ray of hope; it flasht With shuddering glimmer through unscatter'd clouds,

It flasht from passions rapidly opposed.

250

Never so eager, when the world was waves, Stood the less daughter of the ark, and tried (Innocent this temptation!) to recall With folded vest and casting arm the dove; Never so fearful, when amid the vines Rattled the hail, and when the light of heaven Closed, since the wreck of Nature, first eclipst, As she was eager for his life's return, As she was fearful how his groans might end. They ended cold and languid calm succeeds; His eyes have lost their lustre, but his voice Is not unheard, though short: he spake these words.

"And weepest thou, Charoba! shedding tears More precious than the jewels that surround The neck of kings entomb'd! then weep, fair

queen,

At once thy pity and my pangs assuage.
Ah! what is grandeur? glory? they are past!
When nothing else, not life itself, remains,
Still the fond mourner may be call'd our own.
Should I complain of Fortune? how she errs,
Scattering her bounty upon barren ground,
Slow to allay the lingering thirst of toil?
Fortune, 'tis true, may err, may hesitate,
Death follows close nor hesitates nor errs.
I feel the stroke! I die!" He would extend
His dying arm it fell upon his breast;
Cold sweat and shivering ran o'er every limb,
His eyes grew stiff, he struggled, and expired.

:

270

CHARACTERS.

FIRST ACT: FIRST SCENE. Camp of Julian.

OPAS. JULIAN.

Opas. See her, Count Julian: if thou lovest God, See thy lost child.

Julian.
I have avenged me, Opas,
More than enough: I only sought to hurl
The brands of war on one detested head,
And die upon his ruin. O my country!
O lost to honour, to thyself, to me,
Why on barbarian hands devolves thy cause,
Spoilers, blasphemers!

Opas.
Is it thus, Don Julian,
When thy own offspring, that beloved child
For whom alone these very acts were done
By them and thee, when thy Covilla stands
An outcast and a suppliant at thy gate,
Why that still stubborn agony of soul,
Those struggles with the bars thyself imposed?
Is she not thine? not dear to thee as ever?

Julian. Father of mercies! show me none,

whene'er

*The daughter of Count Julian is usually called Florinda. The city of Covilla, it is reported, was named after her. Here is no improbability: there would be a gross one in deriving the word, as is also pretended, from La Cava. Cities, in adopting a name, bear it usually as a testimony of victories or as an augury of virtues. Small and obscure places occasionally receive what their neighbours throw against them; as Puerto de la mala muger in Murcia: but a generous people would affix no stigma to innocence and misfortune. It is remarkable that the most important era in Spanish history should be the most

obscure. This is propitious to the poet, and above all to

the tragedian. Few characters of such an era can be glaringly misrepresented, few facts offensively perverted.

Opas. What wilt thou do then, too unhappy man? Julian. What have I done already? All my peace Has vanisht; my fair fame in aftertime Will wear an alien and uncomely form, Seen o'er the cities I have laid in dust, Countrymen slaughtered, friends abjured! Opas. Julian. Alone now left me, filling up in part The narrow and waste intervals of grief: It promises that I shall see again My own lost child.

And faith?

Opas. Yes, at this very hour. Julian. Till I have met the tyrant face to face, And gain'd a conquest greater than the last; Till he no longer rules one rood of Spain, And not one Spaniard, not one enemy, The least relenting, flags upon his flight; Till we are equal in the eyes of men, The humblest and most wretched of our kind, No peace for me, no comfort, no.. no child! Opas. No pity for the thousands fatherless, The thousands childless like thyself, nay more, The thousands friendless, helpless, comfortless.. Such thou wilt make them, little thinking so, Who now perhaps, round their first winter fire, Banish, to talk of thee, the tales of old, Shedding true honest tears for thee unknown : Precious be these and sacred in thy sight, Mingle them not with blood from hearts thus kind. If only warlike spirits were evoked By the war-demon, I would not complain, Or dissolute and discontented men; But wherefore hurry down into the square The neighbourly, saluting, warm-clad race, Who would not injure us, and can not serve; Who, from their short and measured slumber risen, In the faint sunshine of their balconies, With a half-legend of a martyrdom And some weak wine and withered grapes before them,

Note by their foot the wheel of melody

That catches and rolls on the Sabbath dance.

Opas.

These are they To whom brave Spaniards must refer their wrongs! Julian. Muza, that cruel and suspicious chief, Distrusts his friends more than his enemies, Me more than either; fraud he loves and fears, And watches her still footfall day and night.

Opas. O Julian! such a refuge! such a race! Julian... Calamities like mine alone implore. No virtues have redeem'd them from their bonds; Wily ferocity, keen idleness,

And the close cringes of ill-whispering want,
Educate them to plunder and obey:
Active to serve him best whom most they fear,
They show no mercy to the merciful,
And racks alone remind them of the name.

Opas. O everlasting curse for Spain and thee! Julian. Spain should have vindicated then her wrongs

In mine, a Spaniard's and a soldier's wrongs. Opas. Julian, are thine the only wrongs on

earth?

And shall each Spaniard rather vindicate
Thine than his own? is there no Judge of all?
Shall mortal hand seize with impunity
The sword of vengeance from the armoury
Of the Most High? easy to wield, and starred
With glory it appears; but all the host
Of the archangels, should they strive at once,
Would never close again its widening blade.
Julian. He who provokes it hath so much to rue.
Where'er he turn, whether to earth or heaven,
He finds an enemy, or raises one.

Opas. I never yet have seen where long success Hath followed him who warred upon his king. Julian. Because the virtue that inflicts the stroke

Dies with him, and the rank ignoble heads
Of plundering faction soon unite again,
And prince-protected share the spoil at rest.

Julian.

What they would
They can not: thee of kingdom and of life
'Tis easy to despoil, thyself the traitor,
Thyself the violator of allegiance.

O would all-righteous Heaven they could restore
The joy of innocence, the calm of age,
The probity of manhood, pride of arms,
And confidence of honour! the august
And holy laws trampled beneath thy feet,
And Spain! O parent, I have lost thee too!
Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days,
Me, thine avenger. I have fought her foe,
Roderigo, I have gloried in her sons,
Sublime in hardihood and piety:
Her strength was mine: I, sailing by her cliffs,
By promontory after promontory,
Opening like flags along some castle-tower,
Have sworn before the cross upon our mast
Ne'er shall invader wave his standard there.
Roderigo. Yet there thou plantest it, false man,
thyself.

Julian. Accursed he who makes me this reproach,

Which thy treason

And made it just! Had I been happy still,
I had been blameless: I had died with glory
Upon the walls of Ceuta.
Roderigo.
Surrendered to the Infidel.
Julian.
"Tis hard
And base to live beneath a conqueror;
Yet, amid all this grief and infamy,
'Twere something to have rusht upon the ranks
In their advance; 'twere something to have stood
Defeat, discomfiture, and, when around
No beacon blazes, no far axle groans
Thro' the wide plain, no sound of sustenance
Or succour soothes the still-believing ear,
To fight upon the last dismantled tower,
And yield to valour, if we yield at all.
But rather should my neck lie trampled down
By every Saracen and Moor on earth,
Than my own country see her laws o'erturn'd
By those who should protect them. Sir, no prince
Shall ruin Spain, and, least of all, her own.
Is any just or glorious act in view,
Your oaths forbid it is your avarice,
Or, if there be such, any viler passion
To have its giddy range and to be gorged,