Though you may imagine
That I know little of the laws of duel,
Which vanity and valour instituted,
You are in error. By my birth I am
Held no less than yourselves to know the limits
Of honour and of infamy, nor has study

Quenched the free spirit which first ordered them;
And thus to me, as one well experienced
In the false quicksands of the sea of honour,
You may refer the merits of the case;
And if I should perceive in your relation
That either has the right to satisfaction

From the other, I give you my word of honour
To leave you.

SCENE II.

CYPRIAN.

O memory! permit it not
That the tyrant of my thought
Be another soul that still
Holds dominion o'er the will;
That would refuse, but can no more,
To bend, to tremble, and adore.
Vain idolatry!—I saw,

And gazing became blind with error;
Weak ambition, which the awe
Of her presence bound to terror!
So beautiful she was-and I,
Between my love and jealousy,

Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
Unworthy as it may appear ;-
So bitter is the life I live,

For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light, The ashes of the desolation cast

Upon the gloomy blast,

Tell of the footsteps of the storm.
And nearer see the melancholy form
Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea,
Drives miserably!

And it must fly the pity of the port,
Or perish, and its last and sole resort
Is its own raging enemy.

A A

As in contempt of the elemental rage

A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's
Great form is in a watery eclipse
Obliterated from the Ocean's page,

And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,
A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave
Are heaped over its carcase, like a grave.

The DÆMON enters as escaped from the sea.
DEMON (aside).

It was essential to my purposes
To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,
That in this unknown form I might at length
Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture
Sustained upon the mountain, and assail
With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
Forging the instruments of his destruction
Even from his love and from his wisdom.-O
Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom
I seek a refuge from the monster who
Precipitates itself upon me.

CYPRIAN.

Now, since the fury

Of this earthquaking hurricane is still, And the crystalline heaven has reassumed Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems As if its heavy wrath had been awakened Only to overwhelm that vessel,-speak, Who art thou, and whence comest thou?

DEMON.

Far more

My coming hither cost than thou hast seen, Or I can tell. Among my misadventures This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear?

CYPRIAN.

DÆMON.

Since thou desirest, I will then unveil
Myself to thee;-for in myself I-am
A world of happiness and misery;
This I have lost, and that I must lament
For ever. In my attributes I stood
So high and so heroically great,

Speak.

In lineage so supreme, and with a genius
Which penetrated with a glance the world
Beneath my feet, that won by my high merit
A king-whom I may call the King of kings,
Because all others tremble in their pride
Before the terrors of his countenance,
In his high palace roofed with brightest gems
Of living light-call them the stars of Heaven-
Named me his counsellor. But the high praise
Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose
In mighty competition, to ascend

His seat, and place my foot triumphantly
Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know
The depth to which ambition falls; too mad
Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now
Repentance of the irrevocable deed :-
Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
Of not to be subdued, before the shame
Of reconciling me with him who reigns
By coward cession.-Nor was I alone,
Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone;

And there was hope, and there may still be hope,
For many suffrages among his vassals
Hailed me their lord and king, and many still
Are mine, and many more perchance shall be.
Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious,
I left his seat of empire, from mine eye
Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words
With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven,
Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong,
And imprecating on his prostrate slaves
Rapine and death, and outrage. Then I sailed
Over the mighty fabric of the world,

A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands,
A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves
And craggy shores; and I have wandered over
The expanse of these wide wildernesses
In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved
In the light breathings of the invisible wind,
And which the sea has made a dustless ruin,
Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests
I seek a man, whom I must now compel
To keep his word with me. I came arrayed
In tempest, and, although my power could well
Bridle the forest winds in their career,

For other causes I forbore to soothe
Their fury to Favonian gentleness;

I could and would not: (thus I wake in him [Aside
A love of magic art.) Let not this tempest,
Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder;
For by my art the sun would turn as pale
As his weak sister with unwonted fear;
And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven
Written as in a record. I have pierced
The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres,
And know them as thou knowest every corner
Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee
That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work
A charm over this waste and savage wood,
This Babylon of crags and aged trees,
Filling its leafy coverts with a horror
Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest
Of these wild oaks and pines-and as from thee
I have received the hospitality

Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit
Of years of toil in recompense; whate'er
Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought
As object of desire, that shall be thine.

*

And thenceforth shall so firm an amity
"Twixt thou and me be, that neither fortune,
The monstrous phantom which pursues success,
That careful miser, that free prodigal,
Who ever alternates with changeful hand
Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,
That loadstar of the ages, to whose beam
The winged years speed o'er the intervals
Of their unequal revolutions; nor
Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars
Rule and adorn the world, can ever make
The least division between thee and me,
Since now I find a refuge in thy favour.

SCENE III.

The DEMON tempts JUSTINA, who is a Christian.

DÆMON.

Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,

Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy !
From thy prison-house set free

The spirits of voluptuous death,

That with their mighty breath

They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts;

Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes

Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,

Till her guiltless phantasy

Full to overflowing be!

And, with sweetest harmony,

A VOICE WITHIN,

What is the glory far above All else in human life?

ALL.

Love! love!

[While these words are sung, the DEMON goes out at one door, and JUSTINA enters at another.

THE FIRST VOICE.

There is no form in which the fire
Of love its traces has impressed not.
Man lives far more in love's desire
Than by life's breath soon possessed not.
If all that lives must love or die,
All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
With one consent to Heaven cry
That the glory far above
All else in life is-

ALL.

Love! O love!

JUSTINA.

Thou melancholy thought, which art
So fluttering and so sweet, to thee
When did I give the liberty
Thus to afflict my heart?
What is the cause of this new power
Which doth my fevered being move,
Momently raging more and more?
What subtle pain is kindled now
Which from my heart doth overflow
Into my senses?—

ALL.

Love, O love!

JUSTINA.

"Tis that enamoured nightingale
Who gives me the reply:
He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion and of constancy
To his mate, who rapt, and fond,
Listening sits, a bough beyond.

Be silent, Nightingale !-No more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,

What a man would feel for me.
And, voluptuous vine, O thou

Who seekest most when least pursuing,

To the trunk thou interlacest

Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,-

No more, with green embraces, vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,-
For whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,

To love, only to love.

Let nothing meet her eyes

But signs of Love's soft victories;

Let nothing meet her ear

But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow;

So that from faith no succour may she borrow,

But, guided by my spirit blind
And in a magic snare entwined,
She may now seek Cyprian.
Begin, while I in silence bind

My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast begun.

How arms might be entangled too.

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendour,
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance,
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,-

Appeal to Heaven against thee! so that Heaven
May scatter thy delusions, and the blot
Upon my fame vanish in idle thought,
Even as flame dies in the envious air,
And as the flow'ret wanes at morning frost,
And thou shouldst never-But, alas! to whom
Do I still speak?-Did not a man but now
Stand here before me?-No, I am alone,
And yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly?
Or can the heated mind engender shapes
From its own fear? Some terrible and strange
Peril is near. Lisander! father! lord!
Livia!-