Master Van Artevelde, my Lord of Arlon,
Believe not I would sin in such a sort.
Have mercy on a miserable man!
Oh God! there's some mistake, or else he lied.
How say'st thou that he lied? Sirs, it is true
I with this craven beggarly companion-
Of whose accompliceship to do the deed,
And not the deed itself, I speak with shame-
I with this caitiff truly did conspire,
For good and ample reasons, to remove
Sir Walter D'Arlon from this troublesome world.
Such chances as no prudence could forefend,
Have baulked my purpose, and I go myself.
Wherefore, Sirs, God be with you! To the block!
What are ye dreaming of, ye sluggish hinds?
ARTEVELDE (signs to the Men-at-Arms, who lead out
GILBERT MATTHEW).
Aye, Gilbert, God forgive thee for thy sins!
Thou steppest statelily the only walk
Thou hast to take upon this solid earth.
Full many a better man less bravely dieth.
Take forth the other too.
If through pretext of justice I am doomed,
Some better witness and more credible
Than Gilbert or Romero should depose
To guilt their spite would falsely fix upon me.
Enter VAN RYK, conducting ADRIANA, who throws herself into the arms of VAN ARTEVELDE. He supports her, and addresses himself to Occo.
Lo! here a witness! look upon this face,
And bid death welcome. Lead him to the block.
Oh, spare him; speak not now of shedding blood,
Now, in this hour of happiness! Oh, spare him!
Vengeance is God's, whose function take not thou!
Philip, be merciful and spare his life.
Not though an angel plead. Vengeance is God's;
But God doth oftentimes dispense it here
By human ministration. To my hands
He rendered victory this eventful day
For uses higher than my happiness.
Let Flanders judge me from my deeds to-night,
That I from this time forth will thus proceed,
Justice with mercy tempering where I may ;
But executing always. Lead him out.
Now, Adriana, I am wholly thine.
The curtain falls upon the fancied stage,
The tale half told here rest thee, reader sage;
Pause here and trim thine intellectual light,
Which, more than mine, shall make my meanings bright.
That ancient writer whose romantic heart
Loved war in every shape, -its pride, its art,
Its shows, appurtenance, — whose page is still
The theatre of war, turn where we will,-
That old historian, of whose truthful text
I dog the heels, -me whither leads he next?
To dark descents he guides me; sad and stern,
Him following forth, the lesson that I learn ;
That in the shocks of powers so wild and rude,
Success but signifies vicissitude;
That of that man who seeks a sovran sphere,
The triumph is the trial most severe.
And yet in times so stormy, in a land
Where virtue's self held forth a bloody hand
To greet armed justice,· in such times as these
Still woman's love could find the way to please.
Thus in the tissue of my tale, hercin
By records not unvouched, again I spin,
As heretofore, an interwoven thread
Of feminine affection fancy-fed.
Rest thee a space or if thou lov'st to hear A soft pulsation in thine easy ear,
Turn thou the page, and let thy senses drink
A lay that shall not trouble thee to think.
Quitting the heroine of the past, thou'll see
In this prefigured her that is to be,
And find what life was hers before the date
That with the Fleming's fortunes linked her fate.
This sang she to herself one summer's eve,
A recreant from festivities that grieve
The heart not festive; stealing to her bower,
With this she whiled away the lonely evening hour.
He asked me had I yet forgot
The mountains of my native land?
I sought an answer, but had not
The words at my command.
They would not come, and it was better so,
For had I uttered aught, my tears I know
Had started at the word as free to flow.
But I can answer when there's none that hears;
And now if I should weep, none sees my tears;
And in my soul the voice is rising strong,
That speaks in solitude, the voice of song.
The land of many hues,
Whose charms what praise can tell,
Whose praise what heart refuse?
Sublime, but neither bleak nor bare,
Nor misty, are the mountains there,
Softly sublime, profusely fair!
Up to their summits clothed in green,
And fruitful as the vales between,
They lightly rise,
They scale the skies,
And groves and gardens still abound;
For where no shoot
Could else take root,
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