An ANGEL with an aolian harp hovers in the air

Angel. Woe! woe! eternal woe!

Not only the whispered prayer

Of love,

This fearful curse

Shakes the great universe!

Lucifer (disappearing). Drink! Drink!
And thy soul shall sink

Down into the dark abyss,

Into the infinite abyss,

From which no plummet nor rope

Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!

Prince Henry (drinking). It is like a draught of fire!
Through every vein

I feel again

The fever of youth, the soft desire;
A rapture that is almost pain

Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!

O joy! O joy! I feel

The band of steel

That so long and heavily has pressed

Upon my breast

Uplifted, and the malediction

Of my affliction

Is taken from me, and my weary breast

At length finds rest.

The Angel. It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air has

been taken!

It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glss is not shaken!

It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!
It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!
With fiendish laughter,

Hereafter,

This false physician

Will mock thee in thy perdition.

Prince Henry. Speak! speak!

Who says that I am ill?

I am not ill! I am not weak!

The trance, the swoon, the dream is o'er!

I feel the chill of death no more

At length,

I stand renewed in all my strength!
Beneath me I can feel

The great earth stagger and reel,

As if the feet of a descending God

Upon its surface trod,

And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!

This, O brave physician! this

Is thy great Palingenesis.

Drinks again.

The Angel. Touch the goblet no more!

It will make thy heart sore

To its very core!

Its perfume is the breath

Of the Angel of Death,

And the light that within it lies

Is the flash of his evil eyes.

Beware! O, beware!

For sickness, sorrow, and care,
All are there!

Prince Henry, sinking back. O thou voice within my breast!

Why entreat me, why upbraid me,

When the steadfast tongues of truth,

And the flattering hopes of youth,

Have all deceived me and betrayed me?

Give me, give me rest, O, rest!

Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!
I am like a happy lover

Who illumines life with dreaming!
Brave physician! Rare physician!
Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission!

[His head falls on his book.

The Angel (receding). Alas! alas!
Like a vapour the golden vision
Shall fade and pass,

And thou wilt find in thy heart again

Only the blight of pain,

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!

Court-yard of the Castle. HUBERT standing by the gateway. Hubert. How sad the grand old castle looks!

O'erhead the unmolested rooks

Upon the turret's windy top

Sit, talking of the farmer's crop ;

Here in the court-yard springs the grass,

So few are now the feet that pass;

The stately peacocks, bolder grown,

Come hopping down the steps of stone,
As if the castle were their own;
And I, the poor old seneschal,
Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.
Alas! the merry guests no more
Crowd through the hospitable door;
No eyes with youth and passion shine,
No cheeks grow redder than the wine;
No song, no laugh, no jovial din
Of drinking wassail to the pin;
But all is silent, sad, and drear,
And now the only sounds I hear

Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls
And horses stamping in their stalls!
A horn sounds.

What ho! that merry, sudden blast
Reminds me of the days long past!
And, as of old resounding, grate
The heavy hinges of the gate,
And, clattering loud, with iron clank,
Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,
As if it were in haste to greet

The pressure of a traveller's feet!

Enter WALTER, the Minnesinger.

Walter. How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely! No banner flying from the walls,

No pages and no seneschals,

No warders, and one porter only!

Is it you, Hubert?

Hubert. Ah! Master Walter!

Walter. Alas! how forms and faces alter!

I did not know you. You look older!

Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner,
And you stoop a little in the shoulder!

Hubert. Alack! I am a poor old sinner,

And, like these towers, begin to moulder; And you have been absent many a year! Walter. How is the Prince ?

Hubert.

He has been ill

He is not here;

and now has fled.

Walter. Speak it out frankly; say he's dead!

Is it not so?

Hubert.

No, if you please;

A strange, mysterious disease

Fell on him with a sudden blight.

Whole hours together he would stand

Upon the terrace in a dream,

Resting his head upon his hand,

Best pleased when he was most alone,
Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,
Looking down into a stream.

In the Round Tower, night after night,
He sat, and bleared his eyes with books;
Until one morning we found him there
Stretched on the floor, as if in a swoon
He had fallen from his chair.

We hardly recognized his sweet looks!
Walter. Poor Prince!

Hubert.

I think he might have mended;
And he did mend: but very soon
The Priests came flocking in, like rooks,
With all their croizers and their crooks,
And so at last the matter ended.

Walter. How did it end?