SEV.

Thy meaning, knave, or let this babble cease!

Say, was she cold? My love! My only life!

FABIAN.

No--but--my lord----

SEV.

Say on!

FABIAN.

Another's wife!

SEV.

(Reels.) Help!--No, I will not blench--ah, say you lie!

If this be true!--ye G.o.ds--can I be I?

FABIAN.

No, thou art changed. Where is thy courage fled?

SEV.

I know not, Fabian. Lost! Gone! Vanished! Dead!

I thought my strength was oak--'tis but a reed!

Pauline is wed, then am I lost indeed!

Hope hid beyond the cloud, yet still fond hope was there: But now all hope is dead, lives only black despair!

Pauline another's wife?

FABIAN.

Yes, Polyeucte is her lord.

He came, he saw, he conquered thine adored.

SEV.

Her choice is not unworthy--his a name Ill.u.s.trious, from a line of kings he came Cold comfort for a wound no cure can heal!

My cause is lost,--foredoomed without appeal!

Malignant Jove, to drag me back to-day!

Relentless Fate, to quench hope's dawning ray!

Take back your gifts! One boon alone I crave, That only boon to none denied--the grave.

Yet would I see her, breathe one last good-bye, Would hear once more that voice before I die!

My latest breath would still my homage pay, That memory mine, when lost to realms of day.

FABIAN.

Yet think, my lord--

SEV.

Oh, I have thought of all; What worser ill can dull despair befall?

She will not see me?

FABIAN.

Yes, my lord, but--

SEV.

Cease!

FABIAN.

'Twill but enhance the grief I would appease.

SEV.

For hopeless ill, good friend, I seek no cure.

Who welcomes death can life's short pain endure!

FABIAN.

O lost indeed, if round her fatal light you hover!-- The lover, losing all, speaks hardly like a lover!

While pa.s.sion still is lord--the pa.s.sion-swept is slave-- From this last bitterness would I Severus save!

SEV.

That word, my friend, unsay; tho' grief this bosom tear, The hand that wounds I kiss--love vanquishes despair; Fate only, not Pauline, the foe that I accuse, No plighted faith she breaks who did this hand refuse.

Duty--her father--Fate--these willed, she but obeyed; Not hers the woe, the strife that envious Ate made!

Untimely, Fortune's shower must drown me, not revive; Too lavish and too late her fatal gifts arrive.

The golden apple falls, the gold is turned to dross: When Fate at Fortune mocks, all gain is only loss!

FABIAN.

Yes, I will go to tell her thou hast drained To the last drop the cup that Fate ordained.

She knows thee hero, but she feared that pain Might prove thee also man--by pa.s.sion slain.

She feared Despair, who gains the victory O'er other men, might e'en thy master be!

SEV.

Peace! Peace! She comes!

FABIAN.

To thine own self be true!

SEV.

Nay! True to her! Shall I her life undo?

She loves the Armenian!

Enter Pauline

PAUL.

Yes, that debt I pay, Hard--wrung, acquitted,--his my love alway!

Who has my hand, he holds--shall hold--my heart!

Truth is my guide,--let sophistry depart!

Had Fate been kind, then had Pauline been thine, Heart, faith and duty, linked with bliss divine.

In vain had fickle Fortune barred the way, Want had been wealth with thee, my guide, my stay, And poverty had fallen from the wings Of soaring love, who mocks the wealth of kings!

Not mine to choose, for he--my father's choice-- Must needs be mine; yes, when I heard his voice, Duty must echo be: if thou couldst cast Before my feet an emperor's crown,--a past By worth and glory lit--beloved, adored-- Yet at my father's word, 'Not this thy lord; Take one despised--nay, loathed--to share thy bed,'-- Him, and not thee, beloved, would I wed.

Duty, obedience, must have been the part Of me, who own their sway, e'en with a broken heart!

SEV.

O happy thou! O easy remedy!

One poor faint sigh cures love's infirmity!