ABBOT. "Tis said thou holdest converse with the

things

Which are forbidden to the search of man;

That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,
The many evil and unheavenly spirits

Which walk the valley of the shade of death,
Thou communest. I know that with mankind,
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude
Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy.

MAN. And what are they who do avouch these things?

ABBOT. My pious brethren-the scared pea

santry

Even thy own vassals-who do look on thee

With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in peril.

MAN. Take it.

ABBOT. I come to save, and not destroy

I would not pry into thy secret soul;

But if these things be sooth, there still is time

For penitence and pity: reconcile thee

With the true church, and through the church to heaven.

MAN. I hear thee. This is my reply; whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between

Heaven and myself.—I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator. Have I sinn'd

Against your ordinances? prove and punish! 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,

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.

Аввот.

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 was near his

last,

The victim of a self-inflicted wound,

To shun the torments of a public death

From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have staunch'd
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back and said-
Some empire still in his expiring glance,

"It is too late-is this fidelity?"

ABBOT. And what of this?

ΜΑΝ.

"It is too late!"

I answer with the Roman

Аввот.

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 phantasy 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,
The enlightener of nations; and to rise

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.