Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

CHARLES THE FIRST'S FAREWELL.

W. G. WILLS.

[See p. 386.]

King. Oh, my loved solace on my thorny road,
Sweet clue in all my labyrinth of sorrow,
What shall I leave to thee?

To thee do I consign my memory!

Oh, banish not my name from off thy lips
Because it pains awhile in naming it.
Harsh grief doth pass in time into far music:
Red-eyed Regret that waiteth on thy steps
Will daily grow a gentle, dear companion,
And hold sweet converse with thee of thy dead.
I fear me I may sometime fade from thee,

[QUEEN presses to him.
That when the heart expelleth gray-stoled grief
I live no longer in thy memory;

Oh! keep my place in it for ever green,
All hung with the immortelles of thy love.
That sweet abiding in thine inner thought
I long for more than sculptured monument

Or proudest record 'mong the tombs of kings.

Bell

[Soldiers enter, drawing up on either side of door.
tolls. Whilst the QUEEN seems to stiffen in grief,
CHARLES kneels, kisses her and goes to door.

[Mournfully.] REMEMBER!

(By permission of the Author.)

SPEECH OF LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS.

OVER THE DEAD BODY OF LUCRETIA.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

[Mr. Payne was an American by birth, long settled in England. He wrote Brutus," a Tragedy, and several other successful dramatic pieces; among them " Clari, the Maid of Milan," in which occurs the ever popular song of Home, sweet home." Born 1793; died 1852.j

.

THUS, thus, my friends, fast as our breaking hearts
Permitted utterance, we have told our story:
And now, to say one word of the imposture-

The mask necessity has made me wear!
When the ferocious malice of your king—

King, do I call him!-When the monster, Tarquin,
Slew, as you most of you may well remember,
My father Marcus, and my elder brother,
Envying at once their virtues and their wealth,
How could I hope a shelter from his power,
But in the false face I have worn so long?

Would you know why I have summon'd you together?
Ask ye what brings me here? Behold this dagger,
Clotted with gore! Behold that frozen corse!
See where the lost Lucretia sleeps in death!
She was the mark and model of the time-

The mould in which each female face was form'd-
The very shrine and sacristy of virtue!
Fairer than ever was a form created

By youthful fancy when the blood strays wild,
And never-resting thought is all on fire!
The worthiest of the worthy! Not the nymph
Who met old Numa in his hallow'd walks,
And whisper'd in his ear her strains divine,
Can I conceive beyond her :-The young choir
Of vestal virgins bent to her. "Tis wonderful,
Amid the darnel, hemlock, and base weeds
Which now spring rife from the luxurious compost
Spread o'er the realm, how this sweet lily rose ;
How from the shade of those ill-neighbouring plants
Her father shelter'd her, that not a leaf
Was blighted; but, array'd in purest grace,
She bloom'd unsullied beauty. Such perfections
Might have call'd back the torpid breast of age
To long-forgotten rapture:--such a mind
Might have abash'd the boldest libertino,
And turn'd desire to reverential love
And holiest affection! Oh, my countrymen,
You all can witness that when she went forth
It was a holiday in Rome;-old age
Forgot its crutch, labour its task-all ran;
And mothers, turning to their daughters, cried,
"There, there's Lucretia!" Now, look ye, where she lies,
That beauteous flower-that innocent sweet rose,
Torn up by ruthless violence-gone! gone! gone!

Say, would ye seek instruction? Would ye ask
What ye should do? Ask ye yon conscious walls,
Which saw his poison'd brother!-saw the incest
Committed there, and they will cry-Revenge!
Ask yon deserted street, where Tullia drove
O'er her dead father's corse, 'twill cry-Revenge!
Ask yonder Senate-house, whose stones are purple
With human blood, and it will cry-Revenge!
Go to the tomb where lies his murder'd wife,
And the poor queen, who lov'd him as her son;
Their unappeasèd ghosts will shriek-Revenge!
The temples of the gods-the all-viewing heavens-
The gods themselves-shall justify the cry,

And swell the general sound-Revenge! Revenge!

WILFRID DENVER'S DREAM-"THE SILVER KING."

Denver. Stay. I fell asleep. Jaikes, you don't know what a murderer's sleep is? It is the waking time of conscience! It is the whipping post she ties him to while she lashes and stings and maddens his poor helpless guilty soul! Sleep? It is a bed of spikes and horrors! It is a precipice for him to roll over, sheer upon the jags and forks of memory! It is a torchlight procession of devils raking out every infernal sewer and cranny of his brain! It is ten thousand mirrors dangling round him to picture and repicture to him nothing but himself! Sleep! Oh Ĝod there is no hell but sleep!

Jaikes. Master Will! My poor Master Will.

Denver. That's what my sleep has been these four years past. I fell asleep and I dreamed that we were over in Nevada, and we were seated on a throne, she and I, and all the people came to offer us their homage and loving obedience. And it was in a great hall of justice, and a man was brought before me charged with a crime; and just as I opened my mouth to pronounce sentence upon him, Geoffrey Ware came up out of his grave with his eyes staring, staring, staring, as they stared on me on that night, and as they will stare at me till my dying day; and he said "Come down! Come down you whited sepulchre! How dare you sit in that place to judge men ?" And he leapt up in his grave-clothes to the throne where I was, and seized me by the throat and dragged me down, and we struggled and fought like wild beasts. We seemed to be fighting for years, and at last I mastered him, and held him down and throttled him, and rammed him tight into his grave again, and kept him there and wouldn't let him stir, and then I saw a hand coming out of the sky, a long bony hand with no flesh on it, and nails like eagle's claws, and it came slowly out of the sky reaching for miles it seemed: slowly, slowly, it reached down to the very place where I was and it fastened in my heart, and it took me and set me in the justice hall in the prisoners' dock, and when I looked at my judge it was Geoffrey Ware! And I cried out for mercy, but there was none! And the hand gripped me again as a hawk grips a wren, and set me on the gallows, and I felt the plank fall from under my feet, and I dropped, dropped, dropped,—and I awoke! Jaikes. For mercy's sake, Master Will, no more.

Denver. Then I knew that the dream was sent for a message to tell me that though I should fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, as high as the stars are above, or as deep as the deepest sea bed is below, there is no hiding-place for me, no rest, no hope, no shelter, no escape!

(By permission of Mr. Wilson Barrett.)

RECITATIONS.

66

THE LIFEBOAT.

GEORGE R. SIMS.

[Mr. Sims is essentially a poet for the people. From the commencement of his career he has identified himself with the masses, their lives, sufferings, and recreations. His works, "How the Poor Live," "The Social Kaleidoscope," Rogues and Vagabonds," and "The Ring o' Bells," are typical of a style of writing which has endeared him to the great body of the nation. His "Dagonet Ballads" are very popular with reciters. His plays, comprise "The Lights o' London," ""The Romany Rye," "The Last Chance," "In the Ranks," and "The Harbour Lights," the two last-named written in conjunction with another dramatist.]

BEEN out in the lifeboat often? Ay, ay, sir, often enough!

When it's rougher than this? Lor' bless you! this ain't what we calls rough!

It's when there's a gale a-blowing, and the waves run in and break On the shore with a roar like thunder and the white cliffs seem to shake;

When the sea is a hell of waters and the bravest holds his breath As he hears the cry for the lifeboat-his summons may be to death That's when we call it rough, sir; but, if we can't get her afloat, There's always enough brave fellows ready to man the boat.

You've heard of the Royal Helen, the ship as was wrecked last year?

Yon be the rock she struck on-the boat as went out be here;
That night as she struck was reckoned the worst as ever we had,
And this is a coast in winter where the weather be awful bad,
The beach here was strewed with wreckage, and to tell you the
truth, sir, then

Was the only time as ever we'd a bother to get the men.
The single chaps was willin', and six on 'em volunteered

But most on us here is married, and the wives that night was skeered.

Our women ain't chicken-hearted when it comes to savin' lives, But death that night looked certain—and our wives be only wives;

Their lot ain't bright at the best, sir, but here, when a man lies dead, 'Tain't only the husband missin', it's the children's daily bread; So our women began to whimper and beg o' the chaps to stay

I only heerd on it after, for that night I was kept away.

I was up at my cottage, yonder, where the wife lay nigh her end, She'd been ailin' all the winter, and nothin' 'ud make her mend.

The doctor had given her up, sir, and I knelt by her side and prayed,

With my eyes as red as a babby's, that death's hand might yet be stayed,

I heerd the wild wind howlin' and I looked on the wasted form, And thought of the awful shipwreck, as had come in the ragin' storm;

The wreck of my little homestead-the wreck of my dear old wife, Who sailed with me forty years, sir, o'er the troublous waves of life.

And I looked at the eyes so sunken, as had been my harbour lights,

To tell of the sweet home haven in the wildest, darkest nights.

She knew she was sinkin' quickly-she knew as her end was nigh,
But she never spoke o' the troubles as I knew on her heart must lie,
For we'd had one great big sorrow with Jack, our only son-
He'd got into trouble in London, as lots o' the lads ha' done;
Then he bolted, his masters told us—he was allus what folk call
wild,

From the day as I told his mother, her dear face never smiled.
We heerd no more about him, we never knew where he went,
And his mother pined and sickened for the message he never sent.

I had my work to think of; but she had her grief to nurse,
So it eat away at her heartstrings, and her health grew worse and

worse.

And the night as the Royal Helen went down on yonder sands,
I sat and watched her dyin', holdin' her wasted hands.

She moved in her doze a little, when her eyes were opened wide, And she seemed to be seekin' somethin', as she looked from side to side,

Then half to herself she whispered,

good-bye?

"where's Jack, to say

It's hard not to see my darlin', and kiss him afore I die!"

I was stoopin' to kiss and soothe her, while the tears ran down my cheek,

And my lips were shaped to whisper the words I couldn't speak, When the door of the room burst open, and my mates were there

outside

With the news that the boat was launchin'.

their leader cried.

"You're wanted!"

"You've never refused to go, John; you'll put these cowards right, There's a dozen of lives may be, John, as lie in our hands to-night!"

« AnteriorContinuar »