SCENE II.

The Mountain of the Jungfrau.-Time, Morning.— MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.

MAN. The spirits I have raised abandon me— The spells which I have studied baffle me—

The remedy I reck❜d of tortured me;

I lean no more on super-human aid,

It hath no power upon the past, and for

The future, till the past be gulf'd in darkness,

It is not of my search.-My mother Earth!

And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.

And thou, the bright eye of the universe,

That openest over all, and unto all

Art a delight-thou shin'st not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,

A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
To rest for ever-wherefore do I pause?

I feel the impulse-yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril yet do not recede;

And my brain reels-and yet my foot is firm:
There is a power upon me which withholds
And makes it my fatality to live;

If it be life to wear within myself

This barrenness of spirit, and to be
My own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself-

The last infirmity of evil. Ay,

Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,

[An eagle passes.

Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may'st thou swoop so near me--I should be
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above
With a pervading vision.-Beautiful!

How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself;

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit.

To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make

A conflict of its elements, and breathe

The breath of degradation and of pride,

Contending with low wants and lofty will

Till our mortality predominates,

And men are-what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,

[The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard.

The natural music of the mountain reed

For here the patriarchal days are not

A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air,

Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;
My soul would drink those echoes.-Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying
With the blest tone which made me!

Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER.

CHAMOIS HUNTER.

Even so

This

way the chamois leapt her nimble feet

Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.-What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach'd A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain his garb

:

Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air

Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance.— I will approach him nearer.

MAN. (not perceiving the other.) To be thusGrey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decay

And to be thus, eternally but thus,

Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er

With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years;

And hours-all tortured into ages-hours