Count Julian Part 15

Sons! I approach the mansions of the just, And my arms clasp you in the same embrace, Where none shall sever you--and do I weep!

And do they triumph o'er my tenderness!

I had forgotten my inveterate foes Everywhere nigh me, I had half forgotten Your very murderers, while I thought on you: For, O my children, ye fill all the s.p.a.ce My soul would wander o'er--O bounteous heaven!

There is a presence, if the well-beloved Be torn from us by human violence, More intimate, pervading, and complete, Than when they lived and spoke like other men; And there pale images are our support When reason sinks, or threatens to desert us.

I weep no more--pity and exultation Sway and console me: are they--no!--both dead?

MUZA. Ay, and unsepulchred.

JUL. Nor wept nor seen By any kindred and far-following eye?

MUZA. Their mother saw them, if not dead, expire.

JUL. O cruelty--to them indeed the least!

My children, ye are happy--ye have lived Of heart unconquered, honour unimpaired, And died, true Spaniards, loyal to the last.

MUZA. Away with him.

JUL. Slaves! not before I lift My voice to heaven and man: though enemies Surround me, and none else, yet other men And other times shall hear: the agony Of an oppressed and of a bursting heart No violence can silence; at its voice The trumpet is o'erpowered, and glory mute, And peace and war hide all their charms alike.

Surely the guests and ministers of heaven Scatter it forth through all the elements; So suddenly, so widely, it extends, So fearfully men breathe it, shuddering To ask or fancy how it first arose.

MUZA. Yes, they shall shudder--but will that, henceforth, Molest my privacy, or shake my power?

JUL. Guilt hath pavilions, but no privacy.

The very engine of his hatred checks The torturer in his transport of revenge, Which, while it swells his bosom, shakes his power And raises friends to his worst enemy.

MUZA. Where now are thine? will they not curse the day That gave thee birth, and hiss thy funeral!

Thou hast left none who could have pitied thee.

JUL. Many, nor those alone of tenderer mould, For me will weep--many alas through me!

Already I behold my funeral.

The turbid cities wave and swell with it, And wrongs are lost in that day's pageantry: Oppressed and desolate, the countryman Receives it like a gift; he hastens home, Shows where the hoof of Moorish horse laid waste His narrow croft and winter garden-plot, Sweetens with fallen pride his children's lore, And points their hatred; but applauds their tears.

Justice, who came not up to us through life, Loves to survey our likeness on our tombs, When rivalry, malevolence, and wrath, And every pa.s.sion that once stormed around, Is calm alike without them as within.

Our very chains make the whole world our own, Bind those to us who else had pa.s.sed us by, Those at whose call brought down to us, the light Of future ages lives upon our name.

MUZA. I may accelerate that meteor's fall, And quench that idle ineffectual light Without the knowledge of thy distant world.

JUL. My world and thine are not that distant one.

Is age less wise, less merciful, than grief, To keep this secret from thee, poor old man?

Thou canst not lessen, canst not aggravate My sufferings, canst not shorten nor extend Half a sword's length between my G.o.d and me.

I thank thee for that better thought than fame, Which none, however, who deserve, despise, Nor lose from view till all things else are lost.

ABD. Julian, respect his age, regard his power.

Many who feared not death have dragged along A piteous life in darkness and in chains.

Never was man so full of wretchedness But something may be suffered after all, Perhaps in what clings round his breast, and helps To keep the ruin up, which he amid His agony and frenzy overlooks, But droops upon at last, and clasps, and dies.

JUL. Although a Muza send far underground, Into the quarry whence the palace rose, His mangled prey, climes alien and remote Mark and record the pang. While overhead Perhaps he pa.s.ses on his favourite steed, Less heedful of the misery he inflicts Than of the expiring sparkle from a stone; Yet we, alive or dead, have fellow men If ever we have served them, who collect From prisons and from dungeons our remains, And bear them in their bosom to their sons.

Man's only relics are his benefits; These, be there ages, be there worlds, between, Retain him in communion with his kind: Hence is our solace, our security, Our sustenance, till heavenly truth descends - Losing in brightness and beat.i.tude The frail foundations of these humbler hopes - And, like an angel guiding us, at once Leaves the loose chain and iron gate behind.

MUZA. Take thou my justice first, then hope for theirs.

I, who can bend the living to my will, Fear not the dead, and court not the unborn: Their arm will never reach me, nor shall thine.

ABD. Pity, release him, pardon him, my father.

Forget how much thou hatest perfidy; Think of him, once so potent, still so brave, So calm, so self-dependent in distress - I marvel at him--hardly dare I blame, When I behold him fallen from so high, And so exalted after such a fall.

Mighty must that man be who can forgive A man, so mighty; seize the hour to rise, Another never comes. Oh, say, my father, Say, "Julian, be my enemy no more."

He fills me with a greater awe than e'er The field of battle, with himself the first, When every flag that waved along our host Drooped down the staff, as if the very winds Hung in suspense before him--bid him go And peace be with him, or let me depart.

Lo! like a G.o.d, sole and inscrutable, He stands above our pity.

JUL. For that wish - Vain as it is, 'tis virtuous--oh, for that, However wrong thy censure and thy praise, Kind Abdalazis, mayst thou never feel The rancour that consumes thy father's breast, Nor want the pity thou hast sought for me.

MUZA. Now hast thou sealed thy doom.

JUL. And thou thy crimes.

ABD. O father, heed him not: those evil words Leave neither blight nor blemish--let him go.

MUZA. A boy, a very boy, art thou indeed!

One who in early day would sally out To chase the lion, and would call it sport, But, when more wary steps had closed him round, Slink from the circle, drop the toils, and blanch Like a lithe plant from under snow in spring.

ABD. He who ne'er shrank from danger might shrink now, And ignominy would not follow here.

MUZA. Peace, Abdalazis! how is this? he bears Nothing that warrants him invulnerable: Shall I then shrink to smite him? shall my fears Be greatest at the blow that ends them all?

Fears? no! 'tis justice--fair, immutable, Whose measured step, at times, advancing nigh, Appalls the majesty of kings themselves.

Oh, were he dead! though then revenge were o'er.

FINAL ACT.--FIFTH SCENE.

OFF. Thy wife, Count Julian -

JUL. Speak!

OFF. --Is dead.

JUL. Adieu, Earth, and the humblest of all earthly hopes, To hear of comfort, though to find it vain.

Thou murderer of the helpless! shame of man!

Shame of thy own base nature! 'tis an act He who could perpetrate could not avow, Stained, as he boasts to be, with innocent blood, Deaf to reproach, and blind to retribution.

OFF. Julian, be just; 'twill make thee less unhappy.

Grief was her end: she held her younger boy And wept upon his cheek; his naked breast By recent death now hardening and inert, Slipped from her knee; again with frantic grasp She caught it, and it weighed her to the ground: There lay the dead.

JUL. She?

OFF. And the youth her son.

JUL. Receive them to thy peace, eternal G.o.d!

O soother of my hours, while I beheld The light of day, and thine! adieu, adieu!

And, my Covilla! dost thou yet survive?

Yes, my lost child, thou livest yet--in shame!

Oh, agony past utterance! past thought!