Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path,
With but his folds between your steps and happiness,
When he, who lives but to tear from you name,
Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with

Chance your conductor; midnight for your mantle;
The bare knife in your hand, and earth asleep,
Even to your deadliest foe; and he as 'twere
Inviting death, by looking like it, while

His death alone can save you :-Thank your God!
If then, like me, content with petty plunder,
-I did so.

You turn aside

Ulr. But

Wer. (abruptly). Hear me !

I will not brook a human voice-scarce dare
Listen to my own (if that be human still)—

Hear me! you do not know this man—I do.

He's mean, deceitful, avaricious.

You

Deem yourself safe, as young and brave; but learn,
None are secure from desperation, few
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim,
Housed in a prince's palace, couched within
A prince's chamber, lay below my knife!
An instant a mere motion—the least impulse-
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth.
He was within my power-my knife was raised-
Withdrawn and I'm in his :—are you not so?
Who tells you that he knows you not? Who says
He hath not lured you here to end you? or
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon?

Ulr. Proceed-proceed!

Wer. Me he hath ever known,

[He pauses.

And hunted through each change of time-name-fortune—
And why not you? Are you more versed in men?
He wound snares round me; flung along my path
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurned.
Even from my presence; but, in spurning now,
Fill only with fresh venom. Will you be
More patient? Ulric!-Ulric!-there are crimes
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations
Which Nature cannot master or forbear.

Rev. Charles Maturin.

BERTRAM.

COUNT BERTRAM, driven from his Country by the machinations of LORD ST. ALDOBRAND, joins a desperate Band of Robbers, and becomes their Leader. He and his Companions are wrecked on the Coast near the Castle of ST. ALDOBRAND. BERTRAM is preserved by Monks, and taken to their Convent. He is attended by the Prior.

BERTRAM, PRIOR.

An Apartment in the Convent.-BERTRAM discovered sleeping on a Couch, the Prior watching him.

Prior. He sleeps-if it be sleep; this starting trance, Whose feverish tossings and deep-muttered groans

Do prove the soul shares not the body's rest.

[Hanging over him.

How the lip works! how the bare teeth do grind,
And beaded drops course down his writhen brow!
I will awake him from this horrid trance;

This is no natural sleep. Ho! wake thee, stranger!

Bertram. What wouldst thou have? my life is in thy

power.

Prior. Most wretched man, whose fears alone betray thee, What art thou?—Speak!

Ber. Thou sayst I am a wretch,

And thou sayst true-these weeds do witness it

These wave-worn weeds--these bare and bruised limbs-What wouldst thou more? I shrink not from the question.

I am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness;

'Tis the sole earthly thing that cleaves to me.

Prior. Lightly I deem of outward wretchedness,
For that hath been the lot of blessèd saints;

But, in their dire extreme of outward wretchedness,
Full calm they slept in dungeons and in darkness,—
Such hath not been thy sleep.

Ber. Didst watch my sleep?

But thou couldst gain no secret from my ravings.

Prior. Thy secrets! wretched man, I reck not of them;

But I adjure thee, by the Church's power

(A power to search man's secret heart of sin),

Show me thy wound of soul.

Weepst thou the ties of nature or of passion,
Torn by the hand of Heaven?

Oh, no! full well I deemed no gentler feeling
Woke the dark lightning of thy withering eye.
What fiercer spirit is it tears thee thus ?
Show me the horrid tenant of thy heart!
Or wrath, or hatred, or revenge is there—

[BERTRAM suddenly starts from the Couch, raises his
clasped hands, and comes forward.

Ber. I would consort with mine eternal enemy,

To be revenged on him!

Prior. Art thou a man, or fiend, who speakest thus ?

Ber. I was a man; I know not what I am—

What others' crimes and injuries have made me—

Look on me!

What am I?

Prior. [Retreating.] I know not.

Ber. I marvel that thou sayst it,

For lowly men full oft remember those

[Advances.

In changed estate, whom equals have forgotten.
A passing beggar hath remembered me,
When with strange eyes my kinsmen looked on me,
I wore no sullied weeds on that proud day.
When thou, a barefoot monk, didst bow full low
For alms, my heedless hand hath flung to thee.
Thou dost not know me!

[Approaching him. Prior. Mine eyes are dim with age—but many thoughts Do stir within me at thy voice.

Ber. List to me, monk.

It is thy trade to talk,

As reverend men do use in saintly wise,

Of life's vicissitudes and vanities.

Hear one plain tale that doth surpass

all saws

Hear it from me-Count Bertram !—ay, Count Bertram !

The darling of his liege and of his land,

The army's idol, and the council's head—

Whose smile was fortune, and whose will was law

Doth bow him to the Prior of St. Anselm

For water to refresh his parched lip,

And this hard-matted couch to fling his limbs on!

Prior. Good Heaven and all its saints!

Ber. Wilt thou betray me?

Prior. Lives there the wretch beneath these walls to do it?

Sorrow enough hath bowed thy head already,

Thou man of many woes.

Far more I fear lest thou betray thyself.

Hard by do stand the halls of Aldobrand

(Thy mortal enemy and cause of fail),

Where ancient custom doth invite each stranger,

Cast on this shore, to sojourn certain days,

And taste the bounty of the castle's lord.
If thou goest not, suspicion will arise;

And if thou dost (all changèd as thou art),

Some desperate burst of passion will betray thee,
And end in mortal scath-

What dost thou gaze on with such fixèd eyes?

Ber. What sayst thou?

I dreamed I stood before Lord Aldobrand,

Impenetrable to his searching eyes—

And I did feel the horrid joy men feel

[A pause.

Measuring the serpent's coil, whose fangs have stung them;

Scanning with giddy eye the air-hung rock,

From which they leaped and live by miracle ;

To see that horrid spectre of my thoughts

In all the stern reality of life

To mark the living lineaments of hatred,

And say, this is the man whose sight should blast me;
Yet, in calm, dreadful triumph, still gaze on,—
It is a horrid joy.

Prior. Nay, rave not thus;

Thou wilt not meet him; many a day must pass,
Till from Palermo's walls he wend him homeward,
Where now he tarries with St. Anselm's knights.
His dame doth dwell in solitary wise;

Few are the followers in his lonely halls—

Why dost thou smile in that most horrid guise?
Ber. [Repeating.] His dame doth dwell alone!

chance his child—

Oh, no, no, no! it was a damnèd thought.

Per