LALAGE and POLITIAN.

LALAGE. And dost thou speak of love

To me, Politian ?-dost thou speak of love

To Lalage?ah woe-ah woe is me!

This mockery is most cruel-most cruel indeed!
POLITIAN. Weep not! oh, sob not thus !-thy bitter tears
Will madden me. Oh mourn not, Lalage-

Be comforted! I know-I know it all,

And still I speak of love. Look at me, brightest,

And beautiful Lalage !-turn here thine eyes!

Thou askest me if I could speak of love,

Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen.

Thou askest me that-and thus I answer thee

Thus on my bended knee I answer thee.

[Kneeling.

Sweet Lalage, I love thee-love thee—love thee;

Thro' good and ill-thro' weal and woe I love thee.

Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,

Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.
Not on God's altar, in any time or clime,
Burned there a holier fire than burneth now
Within
And do I love?

my spirit for thee.

Even for thy woes I love thee-even for thy woes

Thy beauty and thy woes.

Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!

How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens

Pure and reproachless of thy princely line,
Could the dishonoured Lalage abide?

Thy wife, and with a tainted memory--

My seared and blighted name, how would it tally
With the ancestral honours of thy house,

And with thy glory?

POLITIAN.

Speak not to me of glory!

I hate—I loathe the name; I do abhor

The unsatisfactory and ideal thing.

Art thou not Lalage, and I Politian ?

[Arising.

Do I not love-art thou not beautiful

What need we more? Ha! glory!—now speak not of it :
By all I hold most sacred and most solemn―
By all my wishes now-my fears hereafter-
By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven—
There is no deed I would more glory in,
Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory
And trample it under foot. What matters it-
What matters it, my fairest, and my best,
That we go down unhonoured and forgotten
Into the dust-so we descend together.

Descend together-and then-and then perchance-
LALAGE. Why dost thou pause, Politian?
POLITIAN.

Arise together, Lalage, and roam

The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,
And still-

LALAGE.

And then perchance

Why dost thou pause, Politian?

Now, Earl of Leicester !

POLITIAN. And still together-together.
LALAGE.

Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts

I feel thou lovest me truly.

POLITIAN.

And lovest thou me ?

LALAGE.

Oh, Lalage! [Throwing himself upon his knee.

Hist! hush! within the gloom

Of yonder trees methought a figure pass'd

A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless

Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.

I was mistaken-'twas but a giant bough

Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian !

[Walks across and returns.

POLITIAN. My Lalage-my love! why art thou moved ?

Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience' self,

Throw over all things a gloom.

LALAGE.

Thou speakest to me of love.

Politian!

Knowest thou the land

With which all tongues are busy-a land new found

Miraculously found by one of Genoa

A thousand leagues within the golden west?

A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,

And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,

And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds.

Of Heaven untrammelled flow-which air to breathe

Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter

In days that are to come?

POLITIAN.

O, wilt thou-wilt thou

Fly to that Paradise-my Lalage, wilt thou

Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,
And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.
And life shall then be mine, for I will live
For thee, and in thine eyes-and thou shalt be
No more a mourner-but the radiant Joys
Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope
Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee
And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,
My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,
My all;-oh, wilt thou-wilt thou, Lalage,
Fly thither with me?

LALAGE.

Castiglione lives!

POLITIAN.

A deed is to be done

And he shall die!

LALAGE [after a pause]. And-he—shall—die !~
Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?
Where am I?-what was it he said ?-Politian !
Thou art not gone-thou art not gone, Politian !
I feel thou art not gone-yet dare not look,

[Exit.

-alas!