Maria. Lord Velez! you have ask'd my presence here,
And I submit; but (Heaven bear witness for me!)
My heart approves it not! 'tis mockery!

[Here Albert enters in a sorcerer's robe.

Maria (to Albert). Stranger! I mourn and blush to see you here
[[551]]On such employments! With far other thoughts [5]
I left you.

Osorio (aside). Ha! he has been tampering with her!

Albert. O high-soul'd maiden, and more dear to me
Than suits the stranger's name, I swear to thee,
I will uncover all concealed things!
Doubt, but decide not!
Stand from off the altar. [10]

[Here a strain of music is heard from behind the scenes, from an instrument of glass or steel—the harmonica or Celestina stop, or Clagget's metallic organ.

Albert. With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm
I call up the departed. Soul of Albert!
Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spells:
So may the gates of Paradise unbarr'd
Cease thy swift toils, since haply thou art one 15
Of that innumerable company,
Who in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow,
Girdle this round earth in a dizzy motion,
With noise too vast and constant to be heard—
Fitliest unheard! For, O ye numberless [20]
And rapid travellers! what ear unstun'd,
What sense unmadden'd, might bear up against
The rushing of your congregated wings?
Even now your living wheel turns o'er my head!
Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desart sands, [25]
That roar and whiten, like a burst of waters,
A sweet appearance, but a dread illusion,
To the parch'd caravan that roams by night.
And ye build up on the becalmed waves
That whirling pillar, which from earth to heaven 30
Stands vast, and moves in blackness. Ye too split
The ice-mount, and with fragments many and huge,
Tempest the new-thaw'd sea, whose sudden gulphs
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard's skiff.
Then round and round the whirlpool's marge ye dance, [35]
Till from the blue-swoln corse the soul toils out,
And joins your mighty army.
Soul of Albert!
[[552]] Hear the mild spell and tempt no blacker charm.
By sighs unquiet and the sickly pang
Of an half dead yet still undying hope, [40]
Pass visible before our mortal sense;
So shall the Church's cleansing rites be thine,
Her knells and masses that redeem the dead.

THE SONG

(Sung behind the scenes, accompanied by the same instrument as before.)

Hear, sweet spirit! hear the spell
Lest a blacker charm compel! 45
So shall the midnight breezes swell
With thy deep long-lingering knell.
And at evening evermore
In a chapel on the shore
Shall the chanters sad and saintly, [50]
Yellow tapers burning faintly,
Doleful masses chant for thee,
Miserere, Domine!