As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

Never here, for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death and time shall disappear,-
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,-
For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY

THE day is ending,

The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows

That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;

The buried fences

Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,

Like fearful shadows,

Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell ;

Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing And tolling within Like a funeral bell.

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?

Carlos.

Pray who was there?

Lara.

I had engagements elsewhere.

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; Doña Sol,

And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.
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,
"O, I am dead !" a lover in a closet,

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

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

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?

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!

Carlos. You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong!

She is as virtuous as she is fair.

Lara. How credulous you are! Why, look you, friend,

There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid,

In this whole city! And would you persuade me
That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself
Nightly, half-naked, on the stage, for money,
And with voluptuous motions fires the blood
Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held

A model for her virtue.

Carlos.

She is a Gipsy girl.

Lara.

The easier.

Carlos.

You forget

And therefore won

Nay, not to be won at all!

The only virtue that a Gipsy prizes

Is chastity. This is her only virtue.

Dearer than life she holds it. I remember

A Gipsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,
Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;
And yet this woman was above all bribes.
And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,
The wild and wizard beauty of her race,
Offered her gold to be what she made others,
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,
And smote him in the face!

Lara.
And does that prove
That Preciosa is above suspicion?

Carlos. It proves a nobleman may be repulsed When he thinks conquest easy. I believe That woman, in her deepest degradation, Holds something sacred, something undefiled, Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature, And, like the diamond in the dark, retains Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light! Lara. Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold. Carlos [rising]. I do not think so.

Lara. I am sure of it. But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer, And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.

Carlos. 'Tis late. I must begone, for if I stay You will not be persuaded.

Lara.

Yes; persuade me.