Till my return. Yet this the assassin knew Knew that which none but she could have disclosed.
My own life wearied me!
And but for the imperative Voice within
With mine own hand I had thrown off the burthen.
That Voice, which quelled me, calmed me: and I
The Belgic states: there joined the better cause; And there too fought as one that courted death! Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying, In death-like trance: a long imprisonment followed. The fullness of my anguish by degrees Waned to a meditative melancholy;
And still the more I mused, my soul became More doubtful, more perplexed; and still Teresa Night after night, she visited my sleep, Now as a saintly sufferer, wan and tearful, Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me! Yes, still as in contempt of proof and reason, I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless! Hear then my fix'd resolve : I'll linger here In the disguise of a Moresco chieftain.- The Moorish robes ?-
All, all are in the sea-cave,
Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners
That it remains uninjured.
I will first seek to meet Ordonio's-wife!
If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk,
And this the hour; her words, her very looks
Will acquit her or convict.
With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly Trust the disguise; and as to my complexion, My long imprisonment, the scanty food, This scar, and toil beneath a burning sun, Have done already half the business for us. Add too my youth, when last we saw each other. Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice A hoarser note-Besides, they think me dead : And what the mind believes impossible, The bodily sense is slow to recognize.
'Tis yours, sir, to command, mine to obey. Now to the cave beneath the vaulted rock, Where having shaped you to a Moorish chieftain,
I will seek our mariners; and in the dusk Transport whate'er we need to the small dell In the Alpuxarras-there where Zagri lived. ALVAR.
I know it well: it is the obscurest haunt
I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Valdez, But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.
Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves, And could my heart's blood give him back to thee I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts! Thy dying father comes upon my soul
With that same look, with which he gave thee to me; I held thee in my arms a powerless babe, While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty Fixed her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this, That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom, And with slow anguish wear away thy life,
The victim of a useless constancy.
I must not see thee wretched.
Ill bartered for the garishness of joy!
If it be wretched with an untired eye
To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean;
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock,
My hair dishevelled by the pleasant sea breeze, To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again All past hours of delight! If it be wretched
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there, To go through each minutest circumstance Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them ; *(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes, And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft Hung with her lute, and played the self same tune He used to play, and listened to the shadow Herself had made)-if this be wretchedness, And if indeed it be a wretched thing To trick out mine own death bed, and imagine That I had died, died just ere his return! Then see him listening to my constancy, Or hover round, as he at midnight oft Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon; Or haply in some more fantastic mood, To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers Build up a bower where he and I might dwell, And there to wait his coming! O my sire! My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
*[Here Valdez bends back, and smiles at her wildness, which Teresa noticing, checks her enthusiasm, and in a soothing half-playful tone and manner, apologizes for her fancy, by the little tale in the parenthesis.]
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