DEATH:

A DRAMATIC SCENE.

(By the Author of " The Arabs.")

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MELPOMENE-THALIA-DEATH.

SUPPOSED SCENE.-A dark and cavernous foreground, softening into a beautiful landscape in the distance.

TIME

Twilight.

Enter MELPOMENE and THALIA.

MELPOMENE.

THE night is waning, and the moon-eyed owl
Long since hath hooted from her lone retreat
The last dark hour which suits my walks with Death.
All now is fresh and fair; the o'er-watching heavens
Are full of eyes, and see too much of earth:
The sullen ocean, in its hollow bed,

Lies hushed; or doth but murmur in its sleep,
Dreaming of storms: the clouds, that late were big,
Have proved abortive; and yon gleamy dawn
Forebodes a day that suits not with my mood.

O Death! my lonely bosom's only love,

Why dost thou linger?

THALIA.

Nay, my sister sad,

Prithee compose that rueful face of thine,
Lest it affect that buoyancy of heart
Which makes the world so beautiful to me.
Behold the day-god lifts his radiant eye,
And looks upon the kindling prospect, through
The blue and golden lattice of the morn!
O how his presence will inspire my love,—
Gay, blithesome Life!--the wild--the young--the free
The ever-laughing idol of my soul!

Who, scorning sleep, and seeking endless change,
With mirth and frolic, quips and jocund pranks,
Roves through the busy world, from peep of dawn,
'Till morn again outstares the winking stars.

MELPOMENE.

Catching at bawbles-gewgaws of the brain-
That press to air.

THALIA.

Plucking the poisoned stings

Wherewith thy hand would fence the honey'd sweets

Hived in the bosom of the breathing world.
Why war with nature-hang the sun with crape-
And put the saddened earth in mourning-weeds?
Mine is the balm-the heart's catholicon-

Which springs from every gushing fount of joy,
In every season, and in every scene;
But chiefest in the gay metropolis.

MELPOMENE.

The living cemetery, where men walk

Shrouded with woes; where wild Perversion reigns;

Where misery appears in borrowed smiles,

Virtue in rags, and Infamy in robes;

And each and all, according to their garb,
Meet scorn or homage.

THALIA.

Say it is the scene

Of Fashion, Splendour, Eloquence, and Grace; The fount of Wit, the focus of Delight.

MELPOMENE.

And what are all the gaieties of earth?—
Turmoil and Trouble, Megrim and Despair,
Tricked in the gaudy trappings of Deceit.