Phrax. Neither I am not beautiful, perhaps,—
Set up to be the universal fool.
Why, here's a waste of parti-colour'd words,
High-sounding phrases, empty eloquence!
"My Lord-my Lord"-it scenteth of reproach.
Sir! have a care! blood waits on insult; ha!
One way or other I will have your heart.
Joseph (aside). This wondrous creature is of faultless mould, And grace plays o'er the movement of her limbs ;
Her marvelous beauty irresistible :
A double charm,—abandon'd languishment
In soft repose hints at oblivion,
In motion her imperious dignity
At secret hours might dictate to the king!
A most unscrupulous voluptuousness
Mars nature in her marvelous qualities:
A fascinating monster, fatal equally
In action or reaction of her love!
Fair flower of poisonous perfume, born to kill!
Never the demon had an agency
Where he had nought to do in work that's done.
(Aloud.) Take pity on yourself, on me, on him!
On me, for you would hate me mortally
When once you were awaken'd from this dream
To see the hideous monster you had made.
So utterly impossible this seems,
That I am prone to think it is a feint
To try my truth and prove my honesty.
Phrax. Ah! 'tis a feint that burns my body up
And stirs my spirit like a raging sea.
Think you to pay in words? Deeds! deeds!
For I can tell you that you have in hand
One who will have no debts.
'Tis time this hopeless contest had an end.
I have borne this besieging patiently,
Still hoping to arouse your modesty.
O do not force the loathing that lies hid
Within my gall to rush into my face!
Phrax. This is the greatest blessing that you shun.
Joseph. Or the worst sin.
O weigh not with such scales!
Joseph. O Madam! have a care!
Phrax.
I'll set my little foot upon thy neck.
Thou art like a beautiful and drowsy snake,
Cold and inanimate, and coil'd around
Upon a bank of rarest sun-blown flowers.
My eye shall be the renovating sun-
Joseph. Madam! forbear! I'm sick to think on it.
Phrax. You overdo this art, for Nature sure
Never did put disgust upon a lip
So near a woman's. An empoison'd cup
Might curdle all the features of thy face;
But this same blandishment upon my brow
Could never chase the colour from thy cheeks.
Joseph. Love, being forced, so sickeneth the sense
That dull monotony is nothing to it.
A palled appetite is sweeter far
Than shocked modesty and fierce distaste.
Phrax. You are too dead a weight.
Phrax. My arms are faint; smile thou, they're ribs of steel.
Joseph. The sun ne'er shinèd in a pitch-black night.
Phrax. O, ignorant boy! it is the secret hour
The sun of Love doth shine most goodly fair.
Contemptible darkness never yet did dull
The splendour of Love's palpitating light.
At Love's slight curtains, that are made of sighs,
Though ne'er so dark, Silence is seen to stand,
Like to a flower closèd in the night,-
Or like a lovely image drooping down
With its fair head aslant, and finger raised,
And mutely on its shoulder slumbering.
Pulses do sound quick music in Love's ear,
And blended fragrance in his startled breath
Doth hang the hair with drops of magic dew.
All outward thoughts, all common circumstance,
Are buried in the dimple of his smile;
And the great city like a vision sails
From out the closing doors of the hush'd mind.
His heart strikes audibly against his ribs,
As a dove's wing doth break upon a cage,
Forcing the blood athrough the cramped veins
Faster than dolphins do o'ershoot the tide
Coursed by the yawning shark. Therefore I say,
Night-blooming cereus, and the star-flower sweet,
The honeysuckle, and the eglantine,
And the ring'd vinous tree that yields red wine,
Together with all intertwining flowers,
Are plants most fit to ramble o'er each other
And form the bower of all-precious Love,-
Shrouding the sun with fragrant bloom and leaves
From jealous interception of Love's gaze.
This is Love's cabin in the light of day:
But O, compare it not with the black night!
Delay thou, sun! and give me instant night,
Its soft, mysterious, and secret hours!
The whitest clouds are pillows to bright stars :-
Ah! wherefore shroud thine eyes?
Phrax. Henceforth I'll never knit with glossed bone;
But interlace my fingers among thine,
And ravel them, and interlace again,
So that no work that's done content the eye,—
That I may never weary in my work.
Joseph. Would that my Lord were come!
Phrax.
The silken trophy of the Spirit of Love,
Where I will lap, fair chains, my wreathèd arms.
Joseph. What's to be done? Madam! give way! I pray you. Phrax. Beware! you'll crack my lace.
PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.
A story of the wars in Flanders in the fourteenth century: the Flemish cities striving to become independent of the Counts of Flanders. PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE has been chosen Captain of Ghent.
VAN ARTEVELDE from his house is addressing the crowd in the street below.
Artevelde. My friends! I thank you for the good respect
In which you hold me. Sirs! I thank you all.
You say that from the love you bore my father,
You and your predecessors, you'd have me,
What he was once, your Captain.
I think you do not well remember, sirs!
The end of all the love you bore my father.
He was the noblest and the wisest man
That ever ruled in Ghent; yet, sirs! ye slew him ;
By his own door, here where I stand, ye slew him.
What then am I to look for from your loves,
If the like trust ye should repose in me,
And in such like wise cancel it? my friends!
That were an ill reward.
Several Burgesses.
Art. O sirs! I know ye look not to such end;
Nor may it be yourselves that bring it round.
But he who rules must still displeasure some;
And he should have protection from the many
So long as he shall serve the many well.
Sirs! to that end his power must be maintain'd;
The power of peace and war, of life and death,
He must have absolute. How say ye? sirs!
ye bestow this power on me? If so,
Shout" Artevelde!" and ye may add to that
"Captain of Ghent,"-if not, go straightway home!
All shout-" ARTEVELDE, Captain of Ghent!”
Now listen to your Captain's first command!
It has been heretofore the use of some
On each cross accident, here or without,
To cry aloud for peace. This is most hurtful.
It much unsettles brave men's minds, disturbs
The counsels of the wise, and daunts the weak.
Wherefore my pleasure is, and I decree,
That whoso shall but talk of terms of peace
From this time forth, save in my private ear,
Be deem'd a traitor to the town of Ghent
And me its Captain; and a traitor's death
Shall that man die!
He shall! he shall! he shall!
We'll kill the slave outright.
If any citizen shall slay another
Without my warranty, by word or sign,
Although that slayer be as true as steel,
This other treacherous as Iscariot's self,
The punishment is death.
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