Part 6 (2/2)

OPAS. Consider, and speak calmly: she deserves Some pity, some reproof.

ROD. To speak then calmly, Since thine eyes open and can see her guilt - Infamous and atrocious! let her go-- Chains

OPAS. What! in Muza's camp?

ROD. My scorn supreme!

OPAS. Say pity.

ROD. Ay, ay, pity--that suits best.

I loved her, but HAD loved her; three whole years Of pleasure, and of varied pleasure too, Had worn the soft impression half away.

What I once felt, I would recall; the faint Responsive voice grew fainter each reply: Imagination sank amid the scenes It laboured to create; the vivid joy Of fleeting youth I followed, and possessed.

'Tis the first moment of the tenderest hour, 'Tis the first mien on entering new delights, We give our peace, our power, our souls, for these.

OPAS. Thou hast; and what remains?

ROD. Myself--Roderigo - Whom hatred cannot reach, nor love cast down.

OPAS. Nor grat.i.tude nor pity nor remorse Call back, nor vows nor earth nor heaven control.

But art thou free and happy? art thou safe?

By shrewd contempt the humblest may chastise Whom scarlet and its ermine cannot scare, And the sword skulks for everywhere in vain, Thee the poor victim of thy outrages, Woman, with all her weakness, may despise.

ROD. But first let quiet age have intervened.

OPAS. Ne'er will the peace or apathy of age Be thine, or twilight steal upon thy day.

The violent choose, but cannot change, their end: Violence, by man or nature, must be theirs: Thine it must be, and who to pity thee?

ROD. Behold, my solace! none. I want no pity.

OPAS. Proclaim we those the happiest of mankind Who never knew a want? Oh, what a curse To thee this utter ignorance of thine!

Julian, whom all the good commiserate, Sees thee below him far in happiness: A state indeed of no quick restlessness, No glancing agitation, one vast swell Of melancholy, deep, impa.s.sable, Interminable, where his spirit alone Broods and o'ershadows all, bears him from earth, And purifies his chastened soul for heaven.

Both heaven and earth shall from thy grasp recede.

Whether on death or life thou arguest, Untutored savage or corrupted heathen Avows no sentiment so vile as thine.

Rod. Nor feels?

OPAS. O human nature! I have heard The secrets of the soul, and pitied thee.

Bad and accursed things have men confessed Before me, but have left them unarrayed.

Naked, and s.h.i.+vering with deformity.

The troubled dreams and deafening gush of youth Fling o'er the fancy, struggling to be free, Discordant and impracticable things: If the good shudder at their past escapes, Shall not the wicked shudder at their crimes?

They shall--and I denounce upon thy head G.o.d's vengeance--thou shalt rule this land no more.

ROD. What! my own kindred leave me and renounce me!

OPAS. Kindred? and is there any in our world So near us, as those sources of all joy, Those on whose bosom every gale of life Blows softly, who reflect our images In loveliness through sorrows and through age, And bear them onward far beyond the grave.

ROD. Methinks, most reverend Opus, not inapt Are these fair views; arise they from Seville?

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