Scene II

Enter Teresa and Valdez.

Teresa. I hold Ordonio dear; he is your son
And Alvar's brother.

Valdez. Love him for himself,
Nor make the living wretched for the dead.

Teresa. I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Valdez,
But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 5
Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living.

Valdez. Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves,
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee
I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts!
Thy dying father comes upon my soul 10
With that same look, with which he gave thee to me;
[[824]] I held thee in my arms a powerless babe,
While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty
Fixed her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this,
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom, 15
And with slow anguish wear away thy life,
The victim of a useless constancy.
I must not see thee wretched.

Teresa. There are woes
Ill bartered for the garishness of joy!
If it be wretched with an untired eye 20
To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean;
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock,
My hair dishevelled by the pleasant sea breeze,
To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again
All past hours of delight! If it be wretched [25]
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there,
To go through each minutest circumstance
Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them;[824:1]
(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid 30
Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes,
And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft
Hung with her lute, and played the selfsame tune
He used to play, and listened to the shadow
Herself had made)—if this be wretchedness, 35
And if indeed it be a wretched thing
To trick out mine own death-bed, and imagine
That I had died, died just ere his return!
Then see him listening to my constancy,
Or hover round, as he at midnight oft 40
Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon;
Or haply in some more fantastic mood,
To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers
Build up a bower where he and I might dwell,
[[825]] And there to wait his coming! O my sire! 45
My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness
That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
If in a most assured reality
He should return, and see a brother's infant
Smile at him from my arms? [50]
Oh what a thought!

Valdez. A thought? even so! mere thought! an empty thought.
The very week he promised his return——

Teresa. Was it not then a busy joy? to see him,
After those three years' travels! we had no fears— 55
The frequent tidings, the ne'er failing letter.
Almost endeared his absence! Yet the gladness,
The tumult of our joy! What then if now——