Remorse;

A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS.

Marquis Valdez, Father to the two brothers, and of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,

ALVAR.

A portrait which she had procured by stealth (For ever then it seems her heart foreboded Or knew Ordonio's moody rivalry),

A portrait of herself with thrilling hand

She tied around my neck, conjuring me
With earnest prayers, that I would keep it sacred
To my own knowledge: nor did she desist,
Till she had won a solemn promise from me,
That (save my own) no eye should e'er behold it
Till my return. Yet this the assassin knew,
Knew that which none but she could have disclosed.

sought

The Belgic states: there join'd the better cause;
And there too fought as one that courted death!
Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying,
In death-like trance: a long imprisonment follow'd.
The fullness of my anguish by degrees
Waned to a meditative melancholy;

And still, the more I mused, my soul became
More doubtful, more perplex'd; and still Teresa,
Night after night, she visited my sleep,
Now as a saintly sufferer, wan and tearful,
Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me!
Yes, still, as in contempt of proof and reason,
I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless!
Hear then my fix'd resolve: I'll linger here
In the disguise of a Moresco chieftain.-
The Moorish robes ?-

Some furlong hence.
Secrete the boat there.

Of the assassination

ZULIMEZ.

All, all are in the sea-cave,
I bade our mariners

ALVAR.

Above all, the picture

ZULIMEZ.

Be assured

That it remains uninjured.

ALVAR.

Thus disguised,

I will first seek to meet Ordonio's-wife!
If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk,
And this the hour; her words, her very looks
Will acquit her or convict.

ZULIMEZ.

ALVAR.

SCENE II.

Enter TERESA and VALDEZ.

TERESA.

I hold Ordonio dear; he is your son
And Alvar's brother.

VALDEZ.

Love him for himself,
Nor make the living wretched for the dead.

TERESA.

[Exeunt

I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Valdez,
But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain
Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.

VALDEZ.

Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves,
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee,
I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts;
Thy dying father comes upon my soul

With that same look, with which he gave thee to me,
I held thee in my arms a powerless babe,
While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty
Fix'd her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this,
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom,
And with slow anguish wear away thy life,
The victim of a useless constancy.

I must not see thee wretched.

TERESA.

There are woes

Ill-barter'd for the garishness of joy!

If it be wretched with an untired eye

To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean;
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock,
My hair dishevell'd by the pleasant sea-breeze,
To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again
All past hours of delight! If it be wretched
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there,
To go through each minutest circumstance
Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them;
* (As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid
Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes,

Will they not know you? And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft
Hung with her lute, and play'd the self-same tune
He used to play, and listen'd to the shadow
Herself had made)-if this be wretchedness,
And if indeed it be a wretched thing

With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly
Trust the disguise; and as to my complexion,
My long imprisonment, the scanty food,
This scar, and toil beneath a burning sun,
Have done already half the business for us.
Add too my youth, when last we saw each other.
Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice
A hoarser note-Besides, they think me dead:
And what the mind believes impossible,
The bodily sense is slow to recognize.

ZULIMEZ.

'Tis yours, Sir, to command; mine to obey.

To trick out mine own death-bed, and imagine
That I had died, died just ere his return!
Then see him listening to my constancy,
Or hover round, as he at midnight oft

Here Valdez bends back, and smiles at her wildness. which Teresa noticing, checks her enthusiasm, and in a soothing half-playful tone and manner, apologizes for her fancy by the little tale in the parenthesis.

Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon;
Or haply, in some more fantastic mood,
To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers

Build up a bower where he and I might dwell,
And there to wait his coming! O my sire!
My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness

That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
If in a most assured reality

He should return, and see a brother's infant
Smile at him from my arms?
Oh, what a thought!

VALDEZ.

Oh pardon me, Lord Valdez! pardon me!

It was a foolish and ungrateful speech,

A most ungrateful speech! But I am hurried
Beyond myself, if I but hear of one
Who aims to rival Alvar. Were we not

[Clasping her forehead. Born in one day, like twins of the same parent?

Nursed in one cradle? Pardon me, my father!

A thought? even so! mere thought! an empty thought. A six years' absence is a heavy thing,
The very week he promised his return-

VALDEZ.

Captured in sight of land!

From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch-tower
We might have seen———

TERESA.

VALDEZ.

Yet still the hope survives

VALDEZ (looking forward).

Hush! 'tis Monviedro.

TERESA

The Inquisitor! on what new scent of blood?
Enter MONVIEDRO with ALHADRA.

MONVIEDRO (having first made his obeisance to
VALDEZ and TERESA).

Peace and the truth be with you! Good my Lord,
My present need is with your son.

[Looking forward.
We have hit the time. Here comes he! Yes, 'tis he.
Enter from the opposite side DoN ORDONIO.
My Lord Ordonio, this Moresco woman
(Alhadra is her name) asks audience of you.

ORDONIO.

Hail, reverend father! what may be the business?

MONVIEDRO.

My Lord, on strong suspicion of relapse
To his false creed, so recently abjured,
The secret servants of the inquisition

Have seized her husband, and at my command
To the supreme tribunal would have led him,
His capture, not his death. But that he made appeal to you, my Lord,
As surety for his soundness in the faith.
Though lessen'd by experience what small trust
The asseverations of these Moors deserve,
Yet still the deference to Ordonio's name,
Nor less the wish to prove, with what high honor
The Holy Church regards her faithful soldiers,
Thus far prevail'd with me that————

Alas! how aptly thou forgett'st a tale
Thou ne'er didst wish to learn! my brave Ordonio
Saw both the pirate and his prize go down,
In the same storm that baffled his own valor,
And thus twice snatch'd a brother from his hopes :
Gallant Ordonio! (pauses; then tenderly). O beloved

Teresa!

Wouldst thou best prove thy faith to generous Alvar,
And most delight his spirit, go, make thou
His brother happy, make his aged father
Sink to the grave in joy.

TERESA.

For mercy's sake,
Press me no more! I have no power to love him.
His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow,
Chill me like dew damps of the unwholesome night:
My love, a timorous and tender flower,
Closes beneath his touch.

VALDEZ.

You wrong him, maiden!
You wrong him, by my soul! Nor was it well
To character by such unkindly phrases
The stir and workings of that love for you
Which he has toil'd to smother, "Twas not well,
Nor is it grateful in you to forget

ORDONIO.

Reverend father,

I am much beholden to your high opinion,
Which so o'erprizes my light services.

[Then to ALHADRA

I would that I could serve you; but in truth
Your face is new to me.

MONVIEDRO.

My mind foretold me,
That such would be the event. In truth, Lord Valdez
"T was little probable, that Don Ordonio,
That your illustrious son, who fought so bravely
Some four years since to quell these rebel Moors,
Should prove the patron of this infidel!
The guarantee of a Moresco's faith!
Now I return.

ALHADRA.

My Lord, my husband's name

Is Isidore. (ORDONIO starts.)-You may remember it:

COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS.

Three years ago, three years this very week,
You left him at Almeria.

MONVIEDRO.

Palpably false!

This very week, three years ago, my Lord
(You needs must recollect it by your wound),
You were at sea, and there engaged the pirates,
The murderers doubtless of your brother Alvar!

[TERESA looks at MONVIEDRO with disgust and
horror. ORDONIO's appearance to be collected
from what follows.

MONVIEDRO (10 VALDEZ, and pointing at ORDONIO).
What! is he ill, my Lord? how strange he looks!
VALDEZ (angrily).

You press'd upon him too abruptly, father,
The fate of one, on whom, you know, he doted.

ORDONIO (starting as in sudden agitation).
O Heavens! I? I-doted? (then recovering himself).
Yes! I doted on him.

Is

[ORDONIO walks to the end of the stage,
VALDEZ follows, soothing him.

TERESA (her eye following ORDONIO).

I do not, can not, love him. Is my heart hard? my heart hard? that even now the thought Should force itself upon me?--Yet I feel it!

MONVIEDRO.

The drops did start and stand upon his forehead!
I will return.
In very truth, I grieve
To have been the occasion. Ho! attend me, woman!
ALHADRA (to TERESA).

O gentle lady! make the father stay,
Until my Lord recover. I am sure,

That he will say he is my husband's friend.

TERESA.

Stay, father! stay! my Lord will soon recover.

ORDONIO (as they return, to VALDEZ).

Strange, that this Monviedro

Should have the power so to distemper me!

Hah! there he goes! a bitter curse go with him,
A scathing curse!
(Then as if recollecting herself, and with a timid look)
You hate him, don't you, lady?

TERESA (perceiving that ALHADRA is conscious she has
Oh fear not me! my heart is sad for you.
spoken imprudently).

ALHADRA.

These fell inquisitors! these sons of blood!
As I came on, his face so madden'd me,
That ever and anon I clutch'd my dagger
And half unsheathed it-

Close by the mountain's edge, my soul grew eager;
And as he walked along the narrow path
'Twas with hard toil I made myself remember
That his Familiars held my babes and husband.
To have leapt upon him with a tiger's plunge,
And hurl'd him down the rugged precipice,
O, it had been most sweet!

TERESA.

I know that man; 'tis well he knows not me.
Five years ago (and he was the prime agent),
Five years ago the holy brethren seized me.

TERESA.

What might your crime be?

ALHADRA.

I was a Moresco!
They cast me, then a young and nursing mother,
Into a dungeon of their prison-house,
Where was no bed, no fire, no ray of light,
No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air,
It was a toil to breathe it! when the door,
Slow opening at the appointed hour, disclosed
One human countenance, the lamp's red flame
Cower'd as it enter'd, and at once sunk down.
Oh miserable! by that lamp to see

My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread
Brought daily for the little wretch was sickly-
My rage had dried away its natural food.
In darkness I remain'd-the dull bell counting,

Know you that stately Moor?

ALHADRA.

I know him not: But doubt not he is some Moresco chieftain, Who hides himself among the Alpuxarras.

TERESA.

I dreamt I had a friend, on whom I leant
With blindest trust, and a betrothed maid,
Whom I was wont to call not mine, but me:
For mine own self seem'd nothing, lacking her.
This maid so idolized that trusted friend
Dishonor'd in my absence, soul and body!
Fear, following guilt, tempted to blacker guilt,
And murderers were suborn'd against my life.
But by my looks, and most impassion'd words,
He wears the Moorish robes too, I roused the virtues that are dead in no man,
Even in the assassins' hearts! they made their terms
And thank'd me for redeeming them from murder.

The Alpuxarras? Does he know his danger,
So near this seat?

ALHADRA.

As in defiance of the royal edict.
[ALHADRA advances to ALVAR, who has walked to
the back of the stage near the rocks. TERESA
drops her veil.

ALHADRA

Gallant Moresco! An inquisitor,
Monviedro, of known hatred to our race-
ALVAR (interrupting her).

You have mistaken me. I am a Christian.

ALHADRA.

He deems, that we are plotting to ensnare him:
Speak to him, Lady-none can hear you speak,
And not believe you innocent of guile.

ALHADRA.

You are lost in thought: hear him no more, sweet Lady'

TERESA.

From morn to night I am myself a dreamer,
And slight things bring on me the idle mood!
Well, Sir, what happen'd then?

ALVAR.

On a rude rock,
A rock, methought, fast by a grove of firs,
Whose thready leaves to the low breathing gale
Made a soft sound most like the distant ocean,