In misery, which makes the oppressed Man
Regardless of his own life, makes him too
Lord of the Oppressor's-Knew I an hundred men
Despairing, but not palsied by despair,

This arm should shake the Kingdoms of the World;
The deep foundations of iniquity

Should sink away, earth groaning from beneath them; The strong holds of the cruel men should fall,

Their Temples and their mountainous Towers should

fall;

Till Desolation seemed a beautiful thing,

And all that were and had the Spirit of Life,
Sang a new song to her who had gone forth,
Conquering and still to conquer !

[Alhadra hurries off with the Moors; the stage fills with armed peasants, and servants, Zeulimez and Valdez at their head. Valdez rushes into Alvar's arms.

ALVAR.

Turn not thy face that way, my father! hide,
Oh hide it from his eye! Oh let thy joy

Flow in unmingled stream through thy first blessing.

VALDEZ.

[both kneel to Valdez.

My Son! My Alvar! bless, Oh bless him, heaven!

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.

APPENDIX.

THE following Scene, as unfit for the Stage, was taken from the Tragedy, in the year 1797, and published in the Lyrical Ballads. But this work having been long out of print, and it having been determined, that this with my other Poems in that collection (the NIGHTINGALE, LOVE, and the ANCIENT MARINER) should be omitted in any future edition, I have been advised to reprint it, as a Note to the second Scene of Act the Fourth, p. 226. Enter TERESA and SELMA.

TERESA.

'Tis said, he spake of you familiarly,

As mine and Alvar's common foster-mother.

SELMA.

Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be

That joined your names with mine! O my sweet Lady,

As often as I think of those dear times,

When you two little ones would stand, at eve,

On each side of my chair, and make me learn

All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk

In gentle phrase; then bid me sing to you-
'Tis more like heaven to come, than what has been !

But that entrance, Selma?

TERESA.

SELMA.

Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

No one.

TERESA.

SELMA.

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 ?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined

With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles, Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Valdez' cost.
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,

A pretty boy, but most unteachable—

And never learnt 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
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man, he loved this little boy:

The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time;

Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.

So he became a rare and learned youth:

But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read,
'Till his brain turned; and ere his twentieth year
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray

With holy men, nor in a holy place.

But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Valdez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the chapel
They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
A fever seized him, and he made confession

Of all the heretical and lawless talk

Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized,
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobbed like a child-it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was working near this dungeon,
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wide savannah
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning entrance I described,
And the young man escaped.

TERESA.

'Tis a sweet tale:

Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,