Hath sent me unto thee. Till this day's task
Be closed, thou daughter of the feeble heart!
He bids thee seek him not, but lay thy woes
Before Heaven's altar, and in penitence

Make thy soul's peace with God.

ELMINA.

Till this day's task

Be closed!—there is strange triumph in thine eyesIs it that I have fallen from that high place

Whereon I stood in fame?—But I

can feel

A wild and bitter pride in thus being past

The power of thy dark glance !-My spirit now
Is wound about by one sole mighty grief;

Thy scorn hath lost its sting.-Thou mayst reproach—

HERNANDEZ.

I come not to reproach thee. Heaven doth work

By many agencies; and in its hour

There is no insect which the summer breeze

From the green leaf shakes trembling, but may serve

Its deep unsearchable purposes, as well

As the great ocean, or th' eternal fires,

Pent in earth's caves !-Thou hast but speeded that,

Which, in th' infatuate blindness of thy heart,
Thou wouldst have trampled o'er all holy ties,
But to avert one day!

ELMINA.

My senses fail

Thou saidst-speak yet again!-I could not catch

The meaning of thy words.

HERNANDEZ.

E'en now thy lord

Hath sent our foes defiance. On the walls

He stands in conference with the boastful Moor,

And awful strength is with him. Through the blood

Which this day must be pour'd in sacrifice
Shall Spain be free. On all her olive-hills

Shall men set up the battle-sign of fire,

And round its blaze, at midnight, keep the sense
Of vengeance wakeful in each other's hearts

E'en with thy children's tale!

XIMENA.

Peace, father! peace!

Behold she sinks!-the storm hath done its work

Upon the broken reed.

Oh! lend thine aid

To bear her hence.

[They lead her away.

Scene-A street in Valencia. Several Groups of Citizens and Soldiers, many of them lying on the Steps of a Church. Arms scattered on the Ground around them.

AN OLD CITIZEN.

The air is sultry, as with thunder-clouds.

I left my desolate home, that I might breathe
More freely in heaven's face, but my heart feels
With this hot gloom o'erburthen'd. I have now
No sons to tend me. Which of you, kind friends,
Will bring the old man water from the fount,
To moisten his parch'd lip?

SECOND CITIZEN.

[A citizen goes out.

This wasting siege,

Good Father Lopez, hath gone hard with you!

"Tis sad to hear no voices through the house, Once peopled with fair sons!

THIRD CITIZEN.

Why, better thus,

Than to be haunted with their famish'd cries,

E'en in your very dreams!

OLD CITIZEN.

Heaven's will be done!

These are dark times! I have not been alone

In my affliction.

THIRD CITIZEN (with bitterness).

Why, we have but this thought

Left for our gloomy comfort!-And 'tis well!
Aye, let the balance be awhile struck even
Between the noble's palace and the hut,
Where the worn peasant sickens!—They that bear
The humble dead unhonour'd to their homes,
Pass now i' th' streets no lordly bridal train,
With its exulting music; and the wretch
Who on the marble steps of some proud hall
Flings himself down to die, in his last need
And agony of famine, doth behold

No scornful guests, with their long purple robes,
To the banquet sweeping by. Why, this is just !
These are the days when pomp is made to feel
Its human mould!

FOURTH CITIZEN.

Heard you last night the sound

Of Saint Jago's bell?-How sullenly

From the great tower it peal'd!

FIFTH CITIZEN.

Aye, and 'tis said

No mortal hand was near when so it seem'd

To shake the midnight streets.

OLD CITIZEN.

Too well I know

The sound of coming fate!-'Tis ever thus
When Death is on his way to make it night
In the Cid's ancient house. 5-Oh! there are things
In this strange world of which we have all to learn
When its dark bounds are pass'd.-Yon bell, untouch'd,
(Save by the hands we see not) still doth speak-
-When of that line some stately head is mark'd,—
With a wild hollow peal, at dead of night,
Rocking Valencia's towers. I have heard it oft,
Nor known its warning false.

FOURTH CITIZEN.

And will our chief

Buy with the price of his fair children's blood
A few more days of pining wretchedness

For this forsaken city?

OLD CITIZEN.

Doubt it not !

-But with that ransom he may purchase still Deliverance for the land!—And yet 'tis sad To think that such a race, with all its fame,