Maria. I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord Velez!
But Heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 5
Faithful to Albert, be he dead or living.

Velez. 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:
[[520]] I held thee in mine arms, a powerless babe,
While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty
Fix'd 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.

Maria. There are woes
Ill-barter'd 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 dishevell'd 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 Albert there;
To go through each minutest circumstance
Of the bless'd meeting, and to frame adventures
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them:
(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid, 30
Who dress'd her in her buried lover's cloaths,
And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft
Hung with her lute, and play'd the selfsame tune
He used to play, and listen'd 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;
And hover round, as he at midnight ever [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,
And there to wait his coming! O my sire! 45
My Albert's sire! if this be wretchedness
That eats away the life, what were it, think you,
If in a most assur'd reality
He should return, and see a brother's infant
Smile at him from my arms? [Clasping her forehead.
[[521]] O what a thought! [50]
'Twas horrible! it pass'd my brain like lightning.

Velez. 'Twere horrible, if but one doubt remain'd
The very week he promised his return.

Maria. Ah, what a busy joy was ours—to see him
After his three years' travels! tho' that absence 55
His still-expected, never-failing letters
Almost endear'd to me! Even then what tumult!

Velez. O power of youth to feed on pleasant thoughts
Spite of conviction! I am old and heartless!
Yes, I am old—I have no pleasant dreams— [60]
Hectic and unrefresh'd with rest.

Maria (with great tenderness). My father!

Velez. Aye, 'twas the morning thou didst try to cheer me
With a fond gaiety. My heart was bursting,
And yet I could not tell me, how my sleep
Was throng'd with swarthy faces, and I saw 65
The merchant-ship in which my son was captured—
Well, well, enough—captured in sight of land—
We might almost have seen it from our house-top!

Maria (abruptly). He did not perish there!