Arn. Let her but live!

Cæs.

The Spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office :-'tis not oft

I am employed in such; but you perceive
How staunch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!

I am almost enamoured of her, as

Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.1

Arn. Thou!

Cæs.

Arn. Rival!
Cæs.

170

I! But fear not. I'll not be your rival.

I could be one right formidable;

But since I slew the seven husbands of
Tobias' future bride (and after all

Was smoked out by some incense),2 I have laid
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble
Of gaining, or-what is more difficult-

Getting rid of your prize again; for there's
The rub! at least to mortals.

Arn.

Prithee, peace!

Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!
Cæs. Like stars, no doubt; for that 's a metaphor
For Lucifer and Venus.

Arn.
Colonna, as I told you!

Cæs.

My way through Rome.
Arn.

To the palace

Oh! I know

180

190

Now onward, onward! Gently! [Exeunt, bearing OLIMPIA. The scene closes.

1. [See Gen. vi. 2, the motto of Heaven and Earth, ante, p, 277.] 2. "It came to pass the same day, that in Ecbatane a city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel was also reproached by her father's maids; because that she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed before they had lain with her... And as he went, he remembered the words of Raphael, and took the ashes of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made smoke therewith. The which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt."-Tobit iii. 7, 8; viii. 2, 3.]

PART III.

SCENE I-A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but smiling Country.

singing before the Gates.

Chorus.

Chorus of Peasants

I.

The wars are over,

The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home:

They are happy, we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!

II.

The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun:
With us she is but a winter's flower,

The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower,
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.

III.

And when the spring comes with her host
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.

IV.

Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December-

The morning star of all the flowers,
The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours;
Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget

The virgin-virgin Violet.

i. The first born who burst the winter sun.—[MS.]

IO

20

Enter CESAR.

Cas. (singing). The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,

The steed bites the bridle,
The casque 's on the wall.
There 's rest for the rover;
But his armour is rusty,

And the veteran grows crusty,

As he yawns in the hall.

He drinks-but what 's drinking?

A mere pause from thinking!

No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.

Chorus.

But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar 's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly
To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble

With birds from their nest.

Cas. Oh! shadow of Glory!
Dim image of War!

But the chase hath no story,

Her hero no star,

Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,

Who made the woods wonder

And quake for their race.

When the lion was young,

In the pride of his might,

Then 'twas sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;

To go forth, with a pine

For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine

At the foaming behemoth ;

i.

through the brine.-[MS.]

VOL. V.

2 M

30

40

50

While man was in stature

As towers in our time,
The first born of Nature,
And, like her, sublime!

Chorus.

But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home:

They are happy, and we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo from every voice!

60

[Exeunt the Peasantry, singing.

FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD PART OF THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED.

Chorus.

When the merry bells are ringing,
And the peasant girls are singing,
And the early flowers are flinging
Their odours in the air;
And the honey bee is clinging
To the buds; and birds are winging
Their way, pair by pair:

Then the earth looks free from trouble
With the brightness of a bubble:
Though I did not make it,

I could breathe on and break it ;
But too much I scorn it,
Or else I would mourn it,
To see despots and slaves
Playing o'er their own graves.

Enter COUNT ARNOLD.

Mem. Jealous-Arnold of Cæsar.
Olympia at first not liking Cæsar
-then?-Arnold jealous of himself
under his former figure, owing to
the power of intellect, etc., etc., etc.

Arnold. You are merry, Sir-what? singing too?
Casar.

The land of Song-and Canticles you know
Were once my avocation.

Arn.

Nothing moves you;

You scoff even at your own calamity-

It is