Oh hide it from his eye! O let thy joy Flow in unmingled stream through thy first blessing. [both kneel to Valdez. Val. My son! my Alvar! bless, O bless him, heaven! Ter. Me too, my father? Val. Bless, O, bless my children! [both rise. Alv. Delights so full, if unalloyed with grief, Were ominous. In these strange dread events Just heaven instructs us with an awful voice, That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice. Our inward monitress to guide or warn, If listened to; but if repelled with scorn, At length as dire Remorse, she reappears, Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears! Still bids, remember! and still cries, Too late! And while she scares us, goads us to our fate. L APPENDIX. THE following Scene, as unfit for the stage, was taken from the tragedy, in the year 1797, and published in the Lyrical Ballads. Enter Teresa and Selma. Ter. 'Tis said he spake of you familiarly, Sel. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be When you two little ones would stand, at eve, Sel. Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale! Ter. No one. Sel. My husband's father told it me, Poor old Sesina-angels rest his soul; He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel? lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool A pretty boy, but most unteachable And never learn'd a prayer, nor told a bead, But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes, And whistled, as he were a bird himself. And all the autumn 'twas his only play To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught him, So he became a rare and learned youth: But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read, But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet, A fever seized him, and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized, How sweet it were on lake or wide savanna 'Tis a sweet tale; Ter. Sel. And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed, Note to the words "You are a painter," p. 184, Scene Il. Act II. The following lines I have preserved in this place, not so much as explanatory of the picture of the assassination, as to gratify my own feelings, the passage being no mere fancy portrait; but a slight, yet not unfaithful, profile of the late Sir George Beaumont. Zul. (speaking of Alvar in the third person.) Such was the noble Spaniard's own relation. He told me, too, how in his early youth, motion. He loved the old man, and revered his art: To be his pupil, and with filial zeal By practice to appropriate the sage lessons, Alh. And then he framed this picture? and unaided By arts unlawful, spell, or talisman! Alv. A potent spell, a mighty talisman! The imperishable memory of the deed, Sustained by love, and grief, and indignation! So vivid were the forms within his brain, His very eyes, when shut, made pictures of them! |