I tempt thee heavenward—from yon azure walls
Unearthly beauties beckon-God's own mother
Waits longing for thy choice-

Lew.

Is this a dream?

Wal. Ay, by the Living Lord, who died for you!
Will you be cozened, Sir, by these air-blown fancies,
These male hysterics, by starvation bred

And huge conceit? Cast off God's gift of manhood,
And like the dog in the adage, drop the true bone
With snapping at the sham one in the water?
What were you born a man for?

Lew.

I cannot live on dreams.

Ay, I know it :—

Oh, for one friend,

Myself, yet not myself; one not so high

But she could love me, not too pure to pardon

My sloth and meanness !

Oh! for flesh and blood,

Before whose feet I could adore, yet love!
How easy then were duty!

From her lips

To learn my daily task;-in her pure eyes
To see the living type of those heaven-glories.
I dare not look on ;-let her work her will
Of love and wisdom on these straining hinds ;—
To squire a saint around her labour field,

And she and it both mine :-' -That were possession!
Con. The flesh, fair youth-

Wal.

Avaunt, bald snake, avaunt!

We are past your burrow now. Come, come, Lord

Landgrave,

Look round, and find your saint.

Lew.

Alas! one such

One such, I know, who upward from one cradle

Beside me like a sister-No, thank God! no sister!—
Has grown and grown, and with her mellow shade
Has blanched my thornless thoughts to her own hue,
And even now is budding into blossom,

Which never shall bear fruit, but inward still
Resorb its vital nectar, self-contained,

And leave no living copies of its beauty

To after ages. Ah! be less, sweet maid,

Less than thyself! Yet no-my wife thou might'st be,
If less than thus-but not the saint thou art.
What! shall my selfish longings drag thee down
From maid to wife? degrade the soul I worship?
That were a caitiff deed! Oh, misery!

Is wedlock treason to that purity,

Which is the jewel and the soul of wedlock?
Elizabeth! my saint!

Wal.

Ye saints in heaven, I thank you!

Lew.

[Exit CONRAD.

What, Sir? the Princess?

Oh, who else,

Who else the minutest lineament fulfils

Of this my cherished portrait ?

Wal.

So 'tis well.

Hear me, my Lord.-You think this dainty princess

Too perfect for you, eh? That's well again:

For that whose price after fruition falls.

May well too high be rated ere enjoyed

In plain words,-if she looks an angel now, you will be

better mated than you expected, when you find her—a woman. For flesh and blood she is, and that young blood,-whom her childish misusage and your brotherly love; her loneliness and your protection; her springing fancy and (for I may speak to you as a son) your beauty and knightly grace have so bewitched, and, as some say, degraded, that briefly, she loves you, and briefly, better, her few friends fear, than you love her.

Lew. Loves me! My Count, that word is quickly

spoken;

And yet, if it be true, it thrusts me forth

Upon a shoreless sea of untried passion,

From whence is no return.

Wal.

By Siegfried's sword,

My words are true, and I came here to say them,
To thee, my son in all but blood.

Mass, I'm no gossip.

Lew. Loves me!

down

Why? What ails the boy?

Henceforth, let no man, peering

Through the dim glittering mine of future years,
Say to himself "Too much! this cannot be!"
To-day, and custom, wall up our horizon:

Before the hourly miracle of life

Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not.
I have wandered in the mountains, mist-bewildered,
And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted,
And priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding,
Gleam ready for my grasp. She loves me then!
She, who to me was as a nightingale

That sings in magic gardens, rock-beleaguered,
To passing angels melancholy music-

Whose dark eyes hung, like far-off evening stars,
Those rosy-cushioned windows coldly shining
Down from the cloud world of her unknown fancy-

She, for whom holiest touch of holiest knight
Seemed all too gross-who might have been a saint
And companied with angels-thus to pluck
The spotless rose of her own maidenhood
To give it unto me!

Wal.

You love her then?

Lew. Look! If yon solid mountain were all gold, And each particular tree a band of jewels,

And from its womb the Niebelungen hoard

With elfin wardens called
me, "Leave thy love
And be our Master "-I would turn away—

And know no wealth but her.

Wal.

Shall I

say

this to her?

I am no carrier pigeon, Sir, by breed,

But now, between her friends and persecutors

My life's a burden.

Lew.

Alas! I

Persecutors? Who?

guess it-I had known my mother

Too light for that fair saint,—but who else dare wink When she is by? My knights?

Wal.

To a man, my Lord.

Lew. Here's chivalry! Well, that's soon brought to

bar.

The quarrel's mine; my lance shall clear that stain.

Wal. Quarrel with your knights? Cut your own

chair-legs off!

They do but sail with the stream.

Her passion, Sir,

Broke shell and ran out twittering before yours did,
And unrequited love is mortal sin

With this chaste world. My boy, my boy, I tell you,
The fault lies nearer home.

Lew.

I have played the coward—

And in the sloth of false humility,

Cast by the pearl I dared not to deserve.

How laggard I must seem to her, though she love me; Playing with hawks and hounds, while she sits weeping! 'Tis not too late.

Wal.

Too late, my royal eyas?

You shall strike this deer yourself at gaze ere longShe has no mind to slip to cover.

Lew.

Come

We'll back-we'll back; and you shall bear the message;

I am ashamed to speak. Tell her I love her—

That I should need to tell her! Say, my coyness

Was bred of worship, not of coldness.

Wal.

Must wait?

Then the serfs

Lew. Why not? This day to them, too, blessing

brings,

Which clears from envious webs their guardian angel's

wings.

[Exeunt.