I i not think that aught was left in me

Of what I have been-yes, I thank thee, Heaven!
One happy thought has passed across my mind.
-It may not be--I am cut off from man;
No more shall I be man-no more shall I
Have human feelings

attle more

Alvat your Daughter!

(TO HERBERT)—Now, for

Troops of armed men, tm the roads, would bless us ; little children, Bushing along in the full tide of play, Shad slent as we passed them! I have heard The boisterous carman, in the miry road, Cees his loud whip and hail us with mild voice, And speak with milder voice to his poor beasts. Mar. And whither were you going? Learn, young Man, Tear the virtuous, and reverence misery, We too much for patience, or, like mine, Suted till it becomes a gift of mercy. Me. Now, this is as it should be! Br.

I am weak !My Daughter does not know how weak I am; Ant, a thou see'st, under the arch of heaven ere do I stand, alone, to helplessness,

By the good God, our common Father, doomed!

Be I had cace a spirit and an arm—

Mr. Now, for a word about your Barony:

I try when you left the Holy Land,

And higher far than lies within earth's bounds:
Therefore I bless her: when I think of Man,
I bless her with sad spirit,-when of God,
I bless her in the fulness of my joy!

Mar. The name of daughter in his mouth, he prays!

With nerves so steady, that the very flies
Sit unmolested on his staff.-Innocent!-
If he were innocent-then he would tremble
And be disturbed, as I am. (Turning aside). I
have read

In Story, what men now alive have witnessed, How, when the People's mind was racked with doubt,

Appeal was made to the great Judge: the
Accused

With naked feet walked over burning ploughshares.
Here is a Man by Nature's hand prepared
For a like trial, but more merciful.

Why else have I been led to this bleak Waste?
Bare is it, without house or track, and destitute
Of obvious shelter, as a shipless sea.
Here will I leave him-here-All-seeing God!
Such as he is, and sore perplexed as I am,

I will commit him to this final Ordeal!—
He heard a voice-a shepherd-lad came to him
And was his guide; if once, why not again,
And in this desert? If never-then the whole
Of what he says, and looks, and does, and is,

bm no one comes to meet, I stood alone ;—
I murmured—but, remembering Him who feeds
The pelican and ostrich of the desert,
Free my own threshold I looked up to Heaven
And 6 not want glimmerings of quiet hope.
>, from the court I passed, and down the brook,
Led by its murmur, to the ancient oak
I am; and when I felt its cooling shade,
I sate me down, and cannot but believe-
We in my lap I held my little Babe

And ciaped her to my heart, my heart that ached
Kry with delight than grief-I heard a voice
Such as by Cherith on Elijah called;
Is mad, “I will be with thee." A little boy,
A shepard-lad, ere yet my trance was gone,
Hales as if he had been sent from heaven,
And said, with tears, that he would be our guide:
I had a better guide-that innocent Babe—
Her, who hath saved me, to this hour, from harm,
From cold, from hunger, penury, and death;
To whom I owe the best of all the good
I have, or wish for, upon earth-and more

To cold and hunger!-Pain is of the heart, And what are a few throes of bodily suffering If they can waken one pang of remorse?

[Goes up to HERBERT.

Old Man ! my wrath is as a flame burnt out,
It cannot be rekindled. Thou art here
Led by my hand to save thee from perdition;
Thou wilt have time to breathe and think-
Her.
Oh, Mercy!
Mar. I know the need that all men have of mercy,
And therefore leave thee to a righteous judgment.
Her. My Child, my blessed Child!

Mar.
No more of that;
Thou wilt have many guides if thou art innocent;
Yea, from the utmost corners of the earth,
That Woman will come o'er this Waste to save thee.
[He pauses and looks at HERBERT's staff.
Ha! what is here? and carved by her own hand!
[Reads upon the stoff.

"I am eyes to the blind, saith the Lord.
He that puts his trust in me shall not fail !"
Yes, be it so ;-repent and be forgiven-
God and that staff are now thy only guides.

[He leaves HERBERT on the Moor.

Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learn'd this when I was a Confessor.

I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.

Lacy. To have been trapped like moles !— Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives: There is no crime from which this man would shrink; He recks not human law; and I have noticed That often when the name of God is uttered, A sudden blankness overspreads his face.

Len. Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built Some uncouth superstition of its own.

Wal. I have seen traces of it.
Len.

Once he headed

Yet calm.-I could believe, that there was here The only quiet heart on earth. In terror, Remembered terror, there is peace and rest.

Enter OSWALD,

Osw. Ha! my dear Captain. Mar. A later meeting, Oswald, Would have been better timed.

Osw. Alone, I see; You have done your duty. I had hopes, which now I feel that you will justify.

Mar. I had fears, From which I have freed myself-but 'tis my wish To be alone, and therefore we must part.

Osw. Nay, then-I am mistaken. There's a weakness

About you still; you talk of solitude-
I am your friend.

Mar.

What need of this assurance

Because

At any time? and why given now?

Osw.

You are now in truth my Master; you have taught me

What there is not another living man
Had strength to teach ;-and therefore gratitude
Is bold, and would relieve itself by praise.
Mar. Wherefore press this on me?
Osw.

Because I feel

In dim relation to imagined Beings.

our Captain

That lives but in the torpid acquiescence

Of our emasculated souls, the tyranny
If the world's masters, with the musty rules

By wt.ch they uphold their craft from age to age:
Ya have obeyed the only law that sense
Submits to recognise; the immediate law,
From the clear light of circumstances, flashed
Lpu an independent Intellect.

Hearth new prospects open on your path;
! Your faculties should grow with the demand;
I wall will be your friend, will cleave to you
Through good and evil, obloquy and scorn,
Ut as they dare to follow on your steps.
Mar. I would be left alone.
(wa (craltingly).

I know your motives! I am not of the world's presumptuous judges, Who damn where they can neither see nor feel, With a hard-hearted ignorance; your struggles Ives'd, and now hail your victory. M. Spare me awhile that greeting.

Osw.

What! if you had bid Eternal farewell to unmingled joy

And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart;
It is the toy of fools, and little fit

For such a world as this. The wise abjure
All thoughts whose idle composition lives
In the entire forgetfulness of pain.

-I see I have disturbed you.

Mar.
By no means.
Osw. Compassion !-pity !-pride can do without
them;

And what if you should never know them more!
He is a puny soul who, feeling pain,
Finds ease because another feels it too.
If e'er I open out this heart of mine

It shall be for a nobler end-to teach
And not to purchase puling sympathy.
-Nay, you are pale.

li names, can render no ill services,

Is reempeuse for what themselves required.

Est extremes in this mysterious world,

| And ppssites thus melt into each other.
War Time, since Man first drew breath, has
Dever moved

Winch a weight upon his wings as now;
But they will soon be lightened.

Ay, look uparound you your mind's eye, and you will learn I matte is the child of Enterprise : ferent actions move our admiration, chiefly

Osw.

Murder!--what's in the word!—

I have no cases by me ready made

To fit all deeds. Carry him to the Camp!-
A shallow project ;—you of late have seen
More deeply, taught us that the institutes
Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation
Banished from human intercourse, exist
Only in our relations to the brutes

That make the fields their dwelling. If a snake
Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask
A license to destroy him: our good governors
Hedge in the life of every pest and plague

Mar. I have much to say, but for whose ear?— not thine.

Idon. Ill can I bear that look-Plead for me, Oswald !

You are my Father's Friend.

(TO MARMADUKE).

Alas, you know not,
And never can you know, how much he loved me.
Twice had he been to me a father, twice
Had given me breath, and was I not to be
His daughter, once his daughter? could I withstand
His pleading face, and feel his clasping arms,
And hear his prayer that I would not forsake him
In his old age-
[Hides her face.
Mar. Patience--Heaven grant me patience!—
She weeps, she weeps-my brain shall burn for hours
Ere I can shed a tear.

Idon.
I was a woman;
And, balancing the hopes that are the dearest
To womankind with duty to my Father,

I yielded up those precious hopes, which nought
On earth could else have wrested from me ;-if

erring,

Oh let me be forgiven !