Page images
PDF
EPUB

As lights in some cathedral aisle
The features of a saint.

"The soil is barren,-the farm is old,"
The thoughtful Planter said;
Then looked upon the Slaver's gold,
And then upon the maid.

His heart within him was at strife
With such accursed gains,

For he knew whose passions gave her life,
Whose blood ran in her veins.

But the voice of nature was too weak;
He took the glittering gold!

Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek,
Her hands as icy cold.

The Slaver led her from the door,

He led her by the hand,

To be his slave and paramour
In a strange and distant land!

THE WARNING.

BEWARE! the Israelite of old, who tore
The lion in his path,-when, poor and blind,
He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,
Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind
In prison, and at last led forth to be
A pander to Philistine revelry,-

Upon the pillars of the temple laid

His desperate hands, and in its overthrow
Destroyed himself, and with him those who made
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;
The poor blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall!
There is a poor blind Samson in this land,

Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel,
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,

Till the vast temple of our liberties

A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.

THE SPANISH STUDENT.

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.-BURNS.

[blocks in formation]

THE SPANISH STUDENT.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The COUNT of LARA's chambers. Night. The CoUNT in his dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with DON CARLOS.

LARA.

You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos;

How happened it?

DON CARLOS.

I had engagements elsewhere.

Pray, who was there?

LARA.

Why, all the town and court.
The house was crowded; and the busy fans
Among the gaily dressed and perfumed ladies
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.
There was the Countess of Medina Celi;
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,
Her Lindo Don Diego; Donna Sol,
And Donna Serafina, and her cousins.

DON CARLOS.

What was the play?

LARA.

It was a dull affair;

One of those comedies in which you see,

As Lope says, the history of the world

Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment. There were three duels fought in the first act,

Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,

Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying, "Oh, I am dead!" a lover in a closet,

An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,
A Donna Inez with a black mantilla,

Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,
Who looks intently where he knows she is not!

DON CARLOS.

Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night?

LARA.

And never better. Every footstep fell
As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.
I think the girl extremely beautiful.

DON CARLOS.

Almost beyond the privilege of woman!
I saw her in the Prado yesterday.

Her step was royal, queen-like,—and her face
As beautiful as a Saint's in Paradise.

LARA.

May not a saint fall from her Paradise.
And be no more a saint?

DON CARLOS.

Why do you ask?

LARA.

Because I have heard it said this angel fell,
And, though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner; like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus!

DON CARLOS.

You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong!
She is a virtuous as she is fair.

LARA.

How credulous you are! Why look you, friend,

« PreviousContinue »