The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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And here, what you will value more, a purse.
Come early for your magic ceremonies. 155
Alvar. I will not fail to meet you.
Ordonio. Till next we meet, farewell! [Exit ORDONIO.
Alvar (alone, indignantly flings the purse away and gazes
passionately at the portrait). And I did curse thee!
At midnight! on my knees! and I believed
Thee perjur’d, thee a traitress! thee dishonour’d!
O blind and credulous fool! O guilt of folly! 160
Should not thy inarticulate fondnesses,
Thy infant loves — should not thy maiden vows
Have come upon my heart? And this sweet Image
Tied round my neck with many a chaste endearment,
And thrilling hands, that made me weep and tremble — 165
Ah, coward dupe! to yield it to the miscreant,
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!
I am unworthy of thy love, Teresa, 170
Of that unearthly smile upon those lips,
Which ever smiled on me! Yet do not scorn me —
I lisp’d thy name, ere I had learnt my mother’s.
Dear portrait! rescued from a traitor’s keeping,
I will not now profane thee, holy image, 175
To a dark trick. That worst bad man shall find
A picture, which will wake the hell within him,
And rouse a fiery whirlwind in his conscience.
ACT III
SCENE I
A Hall of Armory, with an Altar at the back of the Stage. Soft Music
from an instrument of Glass or Steel.
VALDEZ, ORDONIO, and ALVAR in a Sorcerer’s robe, are discovered.
Ordonio. This was too melancholy, Father.
Valdez. Nay,
My Alvar lov’d sad music from a child.
Once he was lost; and after weary search
We found him in an open place in the wood.
To which spot he had followed a blind boy, 5
Who breath’d into a pipe of sycamore
Some strangely moving notes: and these, he said,
Were taught him in a dream. Him we first saw
Stretch’d on the broad top of a sunny heath-bank:
And lower down poor Alvar, fast asleep, 10
His head upon the blind boy’s dog. It pleas’d me
To mark how he had fasten’d round the pipe
A silver toy his grandam had late given him.
Methinks I see him now as he then look’d —
Even so! — He had outgrown his infant dress, 15
Yet still he wore it.
Alvar (aside). My tears must not flow!
I must not clasp his knees, and cry, My father!
Enter TERESA and Attendants.
Teresa. Lord Valdez, you have asked my presence here,
And I submit; but (Heaven bear witness for me)
My heart approves it not! ‘tis mockery. 20
Ordonio. Believe you then no preternatural influence:
Believe you not that spirits throng around us?
Teresa. Say rather that I have imagined it
A possible thing: and it has sooth’d my soul
As other fancies have; but ne’er seduced me 25
To traffic with the black and frenzied hope
That the dead hear the voice of witch or wizard. [To ALVAR.
Stranger, I mourn and blush to see you here,
On such employment! With far other thoughts
I left you. 30
Ordonio (aside). Ha! he has been tampering with her?
Alvar. O high-soul’d Maiden! and more dear to me
Than suits the stranger’s name! —
I swear to thee
I will uncover all concealéd guilt.
Doubt, but decide not! Stand ye from the altar. 35
[Here a strain of music is heard from behind the scene.
Alvar. With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm
I call up the departed!
Soul of Alvar!
Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spell:
So may the gates of Paradise, unbarr’d,
Cease thy swift toils! Since haply thou art one 40
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 oh, ye numberless, 45
And rapid travellers! what ear unstunn’d,
What sense unmadden’d, might bear up against
The rushing of your congregated wings? [Music.
Even now your living wheel turns o’er my head!
Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desart sands, 50
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 upbuild on the becalmed waves
That whirling pillar, which from earth to heaven 55
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 gulfs
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard’s skiff!
Then round and round the whirlpool’s marge ye dance, 60
Till from the blue swoln corse the soul toils out,
And joins your mighty army.
[Here behind the scenes a voice sings the three words,
‘Hear, Sweet Spirit.’
Soul of Alvar!
Hear the mild spell, and tempt no blacker charm!
By sighs unquiet, and the sickly pang
Of a half-dead, yet still undying hope, 65
Pass visible before our mortal sense!
So