Man.
She is silent,
And in that silence I am more than answer'd.

Nem. My power extends no further. Prince of air!
It rests with thee alone-command her voice.
Ari. Spirit-obey this sceptre !

Nem.

Silent still!

She is not of our order, but belongs
To the other powers. Mortal! thy quest is vain
And we are baffled also.

Man.

Hear me, hear me―
Astarte! my beloved! speak to me:

I have so much endured-so much endure-
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loathest me not-that I do bear
This punishment for both-that thou wilt be
One of the blessed-and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence-in a life、
Which makes me shrink from immortality—
A future like the past. I cannot rest.

I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art-and what I am;
And I would hear, yet once before I perish,
The voice which was my music-Speak to me!
For I have call'd on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush'd

boughs,

And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves
Acquainted with thy vainly-echoed name,
Which answer'd me—many things answer'd me-
Spirits and men-but thou wert silent all,
Yet speak to me! I have outwatch'd the stars,
And gazed o'er heaven in vain in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wander'd o'er the earth,
And never found thy likeness-Speak to me!
Look on the fiends around-they feel for me:
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone-
Speak to me! though it be in wrath ;-but say-
I reck not what-but let me hear thee once-
This once-once more!

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred!

(1) "Over this fine drama, a moral feeling hangs like a sombrous thunder-cloud. No other guilt but that so darkly shadowed out could have furnished so dreadful an illustration of the hideous aberrations of human nature, however noble and majestic, when left a prey to its desires, its passions, and its imagination. The beauty, at one time so innocently adored, is at last soiled, profaned, (2) The third Act, as originally written, being shown to the and violated. Affection, love, guilt, horror, remorse, and death, late Mr. Gifford, he expressed his unfavourable opinion of it very come in terrible succession, yet all darkly linked together. We distinctly; and Mr. Murray transmitted this to Lord Byron. The think of starte as young, beautiful, innocent-guilty-lost-result is told in the following extracts from his letters:murdered-buried-judged-pardoned; but still in her permitted "Venice, April 14, 1817.-The third Act is certainly d-d visit to earth, speaking in a voice of sorrow, and with a countenance yet pale with mortal trouble. We had but a glimpse of her in her beauty and innocence; but, at last, she rises up before us in all the mortal silence of a ghost, with fixed, glazed, and pas sionless eyes, revealing death, judgment, and eternity. The

bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which savoured of the palsy) has the dregs of my fever during which it was written. It must on no account be published in its present state. I will try and reform it, or re-write it altogether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making any thing out of it. The

moral breathes and burns in every word,-in sadness, misery, insanity, desolation, and death. The work is 'instinct with spirit,'-and in the agony and distraction, and all its dimly-imagined causes, we behold, though broken up, confused, and shattered, the elements of a purer existence." Wilson.

Abbot. My son! I did not speak of punishment,
But penitence and pardon ;-with thyself
The choice of such remains-and for the last,
Our institutions and our strong belief
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin
To higher hope and better thoughts; the first
I leave to Heaven,-"Vengeance is mine alone!"
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness

His servant echoes back the awful word.

Man. Old man! there is no power in holy men, The enlightener of nations, and to rise

Nor charm in prayer-nor purifying form
Of penitence-nor outward look-nor fast-
Nor agony-nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair,
Which is remorse without the fear of hell,
But, all in all sufficient to itself,

Would make a hell of heaven-can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd

He deals on his own soul.

Abbot.
All this is well;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place,
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity.-Say on-
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee shall be pardon'd.
Man. When Rome's sixth emperor (1) was near
his last,

The victim of a self-inflicted wound,
To shun the torments of a public death (2)
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have stanch'd
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back, and said-
Some empire still in his expiring glance,

64

It is too late-is this fidelity ?"
Abbot. And what of this?

Abbot.

It never can be so,
To reconcile thyself with thy own soul,
And thy own soul with Heaven. Hast thou no hope?
'Tis strange-even those who do despair above,
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth,

To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.
Man. Ay-father! I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men,

I knew not whither-it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss
(Which casts up misty columns that become
Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies),
Lies low but mighty still.-But this is past;
My thoughts mistook themselves.

Abbot.

And wherefore so? Man. I could not tame my nature down; for he Must serve who fain would sway-and soothe-and

sue

And watch all time-and pry into all place-
And be a living lie-who would become
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such
The mass are; I disdain'd to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader-and of wolves.
The lion is alone, and so am I.

1

Abbot. And why not live and act with other men?
Man. Because my nature was averse from life;
And yet not cruel; for I would not make,
But find, a desolation:-like the wind,
The red-hot breath of the most lone simoom,
Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast,
And revels o'er their wild and arid waves,
And seeketh not, so that it is not sought,
But being met is deadly; such hath been
The course of my existence; but there came
Things in my path which are no more.
Abbot.

Alas!

I 'gin to fear that thou art past all aid
From me and from my calling; yet so young,

334

And those who dwell in them! for, near or far, ·
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects;-thou dost rise,
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well!
I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first glance
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take
My latest look: thou wilt not beam on one
To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been
Of a more fatal nature. (1) He is gone:
I follow.

[Exit MANFRED.

SCENE III

The Mountains-The Castle of Manfred at some distance-A Terrace before a Tower.-Time, Twilight.

HERMAN, MANUEL, and other Dependants of
MANFRED.

He hath pursued long vigils in this tower,
Without a witness. I have been within it,-
So have we all been oft-times; but from it,
Or its contents, it were impossible

To draw conclusions absolute of aught
His studies tend to. To be sure, there is
One chamber where none enter: I would give
The fee of what I have to come these three years,
To pore upon its mysteries.

Manuel.
'T were dangerous;
Content thyself with what thou know'st already.
Her. Ah! Manuel! thou art elderly and wise,
And couldst say much; thou hast dwelt within the
How many years is 't?
[castle-
Manuel.
Ere Count: Manfred's birth,
I served his father, whom he nought resembles.

Her. 'Tis strange enough; night after night, for Relate me some, to while away our watch:
I've heard thee darkly speak of an event
years,
Which happen'd hereabouts, by this same tower.

Manuel. That was a night indeed! I do remember
'T was twilight, as it may be now, and such
Another evening;—yon red cloud, which rests
On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then,-
So like that it might be the same; the wind
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows
Began to glitter with the climbing moon;
Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,-
How occupied, we knew not, but with him
The sole companion of his wanderings
And watchings-her, whom of all earthly things
That lived, the only thing he seem'd to love,—
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do,
The lady Astarte, his—(3)

Hush! who comes here?

Her. There be more sons in like predicament. But wherein do they differ?

Manuel.

I speak not

Of features or of form, but mind and habits:
Count Sigismund was proud,—but gay and free,—
A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not

With books and solitude, nor made the night
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time,
Merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside
From men and their delights.

Her.

Beshrew the hour,
But those were jocund times! I would that such
Would visit the old walls again; they look
As if they had forgotten them.

Manuel.

(1) "Pray, was Manfred's speech to the Sun still retained in Act third? I hope so: it was one of the best in the thing, and better than the Coliseum." B. Letters, 1817.

(2) In the MS.

"Some strange things in these few years."-E.

(3) In its original shape the remainder of the third Act ran thus:

Her.

Look-look-the tower

The tower's on fire. Oh, heavens and earth! what sound,
What dreadful sound is that?
A crash like thunder.
Manuel, Help, help, there !-to the rescue of the Count,-
The Count's in danger,-what ho! there! approach!

These walls
Must change their chieftain first. Oh! I have seen
Some strange things in them, Herman. (2)
Come, be friendly;

Her.

I then will stay behind; but, for my part,

I do not see precisely to what end.
Vassal, Cease your vain prating-come.
Manuel (speaking within).

'T is all in vain

He's dead.

Her. (within). Not so-even now methought he moved;
But it is dark-so bear him gently out-
Softly-how cold he is! take care of his temples
In winding down the staircase.

Re-enter MANUEL and HERMAN, bearing MANFRED in their arms.

Manuel. Hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring
What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed
For the leech to the city-quick! some water there!
Her. His cheek is black-but there is a faint beat
Still lingering about the heart. Some water.

4.

[They sprinkle MANFRED with water; after a pause, gives some signs of life. Manuel. He seems to strive to speak-come-cheerly Count! He moves his lips-canst hear him? I am old, And cannot catch faint sounds.