The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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om. Remorse.
(For I have arranged it — music, altar, incense)
All shall be ready. Here is this same picture,
And here, what you will value more, a purse.
Come early for your magic ceremonies.
Remorse.
gazes, &c. Remorse.
[Between 312 and 313:]
Who spake pollution of thee! barter for life
This farewell pledge, which with impassioned vow
I had sworn that I would grasp — ev’n in my death-pang!
Remorse.
Affixed to 318-19 omitted. (Ali re-enters).
Ali! new Hope, new joy! A life thrills thro’ me
As if renew’d from Heaven! Bring back that tablet
Restor’d to me by a fortunate Star. This picture
Of my assassination will I leave
As the token of my Fate: —
Haste, for I yearn to tell thee what has pass’d [Exit Ali.
MS. III.
Remorse.
ACT THE THIRD
SCENE THE FIRST. — A hall of armory, with an altar in the part farthest
from the stage.
VELEZ, OSORIO, MARIA.
Maria. Lord Velez! you have ask’d my presence here,
And I submit; but (Heaven bear witness for me!)
My heart approves it not! ‘tis mockery!
[Here ALBERT enters in a sorcerer’s robe.
Maria (to Albert). Stranger! I mourn and blush to see you here
On such employments! With far other thoughts 5
I left you.
Osorio (aside). Ha! he has been tampering with her!
Albert. O high-soul’d maiden, and more dear to me
Than suits the stranger’s name, I swear to thee,
I will uncover all concealed things!
Doubt, but decide not!
Stand from off the altar. 10
[Here a strain of music is heard from behind the
scenes, from an instrument of glass or
steel — the harmonica or Celestina stop, or
Clagget’s metallic organ.
Albert. With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm
I call up the departed. Soul of Albert!
Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spells:
So may the gates of Paradise unbarr’d
Cease thy swift toils, since haply thou art one 15
Of that innumerable company,
Who in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow,
Girdle this round earth in a dizzy motion,
With noise too vast and constant to be heard —
Fitliest unheard! For, O ye numberless 20
And rapid travellers! what ear unstun’d,
What sense unmadden’d, might bear up against
The rushing of your congregated wings?
Even now your living wheel turns o’er my head!
Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desart sands, 25
That roar and whiten, like a burst of waters,
A sweet appearance, but a dread illusion,
To the parch’d caravan that roams by night.
And ye build up on the becalmed waves
That whirling pillar, which from earth to heaven 30
Stands vast, and moves in blackness. Ye too split
The ice-mount, and with fragments many and huge,
Tempest the new-thaw’d sea, whose sudden gulphs
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard’s skiff.
Then round and round the whirlpool’s marge ye dance, 35
Till from the blue-swoln corse the soul toils out,
And joins your mighty army.
Soul of Albert!
Hear the mild spell and tempt no blacker charm.
By sighs unquiet and the sickly pang
Of an half dead yet still undying hope, 40
Pass visible before our mortal sense;
So shall the Church’s cleansing rites be thine,
Her knells and masses that redeem the dead.
THE SONG
(Sung behind the scenes, accompanied by the same
instrument as before.)
Hear, sweet spirit! hear the spell
Lest a blacker charm compel! 45
So shall the midnight breezes swell
With thy deep long-lingering knell.
And at evening evermore
In a chapel on the shore
Shall the chanters sad and saintly, 50
Yellow tapers burning faintly,
Doleful masses chant for thee,
Miserere, Domine!
Hark! the cadence dies away
On the quiet moonlight sea, 55
The boatmen rest their oars, and say,
Miserere, Domine! [A long pause.
Osorio. This was too melancholy, father!
Velez. Nay!
My Albert lov’d sad music from a child.
Once he was lost; and after weary search 60
We found him in an open place of the wood,
To which spot he had follow’d a blind boy
Who breathed into a pipe of sycamore
Some strangely-moving notes, and these, he said,
Were taught him in a dream; him we first saw 65
Stretch’d on the broad top of a sunny heath-bank;
And, lower down, poor Albert fast asleep,
His head upon the blind boy’s dog — it pleased me
To mark, how he had fasten’d round the pipe
A silver toy, his grandmother had given him. 70
Methinks I see him now, as he then look’d.
His infant dress was grown too short for him,
Yet still he wore it.
Albert (aside). My tears must not flow —
I must not clasp his knees, and cry, my father!
Osorio. The innocent obey nor charm nor spell. 75
My brother is in heaven. Thou sainted spirit
Burst on our sight, a passing visitant!
Once more to hear thy voice, once more to