Meg. O, pity me! I love you, señorita!
Her. No, no! I must not hear that.
Meg. Then I'll pray
Silence to be my friend and speak my dumb
Unuttered heart.
Her. You must not love me, sir.
But you may love—my father. When you praised him,
You too seemed fair to me.
Meg. I'll sing him till
The stars lie at our feet, if you will listen!
Her. He gave your country peace?
Meg. His royal name
Is dear as Cordiaz' in the grateful heart
Of Goldusan. That proud land lay unkept.
Her ores intombed, her vales without a plough,
Her rivers wasting down to shipless seas,
Her people starving, while her nobles strove
For shreds of power,—the clouted thing we called
A government. Then on our factions fell,
Strong as a god's, the hand of Hudibrand;
And now, compact, we stand by Cordiaz,
While every mountain groans with golden birth.
And every river turns its thousand wheels,
And every valley buried is in bloom.
Her. My dearest father! But I knew 'twas so!
And they who starved are fed and happy now?
They reap the bloom and share the golden flood?
Meg. All will be well when once we've scourged the land
Of rebels that drip poison from their tongues,
Stirring the meek and unambitious poor,—
Who sought no life but saintly, noble toil,—
With strangest rage, till maddened they would bite
The fostering hand of God.
Her. We've prisons where
We put such troublers. Has your land no jails?