Count Alarcos | Page 4

see our gardens?
I:2:76 SIDO. We are favoured. We wait upon your steps.
I:2:77 LEON. And feel that roses Will spring beneath them.
I:2:78 COUN. You are an adept, sir, In our gay science.
I:2:79 LEON. Faith, I stole it, lady, From a loose Troubadour Sidonia
keeps To write his sonnets.
[Exeunt omnes.]

SCENE 3
A Chamber.
[Enter ALARCOS and PAGE.]
I:3:1 PAGE. Will you wait here, my Lord?
I:3:2 ALAR. I will, sir Page.
[Exit PAGE.] The Bishop of Ossuna: what would he? He scents the
prosperous ever. Ay! they'll cluster Round this new hive. But I'll not
house them yet. Marry, I know them all; but me they know, As
mountains might the leaping stream that meets The ocean as a river.
Time and exile Change our life's course, but is its flow less deep
Because it is more calm? I've seen to-day Might stir its pools. What if
my phantom flung A shade on their bright path? 'Tis closed to me
Although the goal's a crown. She loved me once; Now swoons, and
now the match is off. She's true. But I have clipped the heart that once
could soar High as her own! Dreams, dreams! And yet entranced, Unto
the fair phantasma that is fled, My struggling fancy clings; for there are
hours When memory with her signet stamps the brain With an undying
mint; and these were such, When high Ambition and enraptured Love,
Twin Genii of my daring destiny, Bore on my sweeping life with their
full wing, Like an angelic host:
[In the distance enter a lady veiled.] Is this their priest? Burgos
unchanged I see.
[Advancing towards her.] A needless veil To one prophetic of thy
charms, fair lady. And yet they fall on an ungracious eye.
[Withdraws the veil.] Solisa!
I:3:3 SOL. Yes! Solisa; once again O say Solisa! let that long lost voice
Breathe with a name too faithful!
I:3:4 ALAR. Oh! what tones, What mazing sight is this! The
spellbound forms Of my first youth rise up from the abyss Of opening
time. I listen to a voice That bursts the sepulchre of buried hope Like
an immortal trumpet.
I:3:5 SOL. Thou hast granted, Mary, my prayers!
I:3:6 ALAR. Solisa, my Solisa!
I:3:7 SOL. Thine, thine, Alarcos. But thou: whose art thou?
I:3:8 ALAR. Within this chamber is my memory bound; I have no
thought, no consciousness beyond Its precious walls.

I:3:9 SOL. Thus did he look, thus speak, When to my heart he clung,
and I to him Breathed my first love -- and last.
I:3:10 ALAR. Alas! alas! Woe to thy Mother, maiden.
I:3:11 SOL. She has found That which I oft have prayed for.
I:3:12 ALAR. But not found A doom more dark than ours.
I:3:13 SOL. I sent for thee, To tell thee why I sent for thee; yet why,
Alas! I know not. Was it but to look Alone upon the face that once was
mine? This morn it was so grave. O! was it woe, Or but indifference,
that inspired that brow That seemed so cold and stately? Was it hate? O!
tell me anything, but that to thee I am a thing of nothingness.
I:3:14 ALAR. O spare! Spare me such words of torture.
I:3:15 SOL. Could I feel Thou didst not hate me, that my image
brought At least a gentle, if not tender thoughts, I'd be content. I cannot
live to think, After the past, that we should meet again And change cold
looks. We are not strangers, say At least we are not strangers?
I:3:16 ALAR. Gentle Princess --
I:3:17 SOL. Call me Solisa; tho' we meet no more Call me Solisa now.
I:3:18 ALAR. Thy happiness --
I:3:19 SOL. O! no, no, no, not happiness, at least Not from those lips.
I:3:20 ALAR. Indeed it is a name That ill becomes them.
I:3:21 SOL. Yet they say, thou'rt happy, And bright with all prosperity,
and I Felt solace in that thought.
I:3:22 ALAR. Prosperity! Men call them prosperous whom they deem
enjoy That which they envy; but there's no success Save in one
master-wish fulfilled, and mine Is lost for ever.
I:3:23 SOL. Why was it? O, why Didst thou forget me?
I:3:24 ALAR. Never, lady, never -- But ah! the past, the irrevocable
past -- We can but meet to mourn.
I:3:25 SOL. No, not to mourn I came to bless thee, came to tell to thee I
hoped that thou wert happy.
I:3:26 ALAR. Come to mourn. I'll find delight in my unbridled grief:
Yes! let me fling away at last this mask, And gaze upon my woe.
I:3:27 SOL. O, it was rash, Indeed 'twas rash, Alarcos; what, sweet sir,
What, after all our vows, to hold me false, And place this bar between
us! I'll not