[Here a strain of music is heard from behind the scene.

Alvar. With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm
I call up the departed!
Soul of Alvar!
Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spell:
So may the gates of Paradise, unbarr'd,
Cease thy swift toils! Since haply thou art one 40
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 oh, ye numberless, [45]
And rapid travellers! what ear unstunn'd,
What sense unmadden'd, might bear up against
The rushing of your congregated wings? [Music.
Even now your living wheel turns o'er my head!
[[849]] Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desart sands, [50]
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 upbuild on the becalmed waves
That whirling pillar, which from earth to heaven 55
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 gulfs
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard's skiff!
Then round and round the whirlpool's marge ye dance, [60]
Till from the blue swoln corse the soul toils out,
And joins your mighty army.
[Here behind the scenes a voice sings the three words, 'Hear, Sweet Spirit.'
Soul of Alvar!
Hear the mild spell, and tempt no blacker charm!
By sighs unquiet, and the sickly pang
Of a half-dead, yet still undying hope, 65
Pass visible before our mortal sense!
So shall the Church's cleansing rites be thine,
Her knells and masses that redeem the dead!

SONG

Behind the Scenes, accompanied by the same Instrument as before.

Hear, sweet spirit, hear the spell,
Lest a blacker charm compel! 70
So shall the midnight breezes swell
With thy deep long-lingering knell.

And at evening evermore,
In a chapel on the shore,
Shall the chaunter, sad and saintly, [75]
Yellow tapers burning faintly,
Doleful masses chaunt for thee,
Miserere Domine!

Hark! the cadence dies away
On the quiet moonlight sea: [80]
The boatmen rest their oars and say,
Miserere Domine! [A long pause.

Ordonio. The innocent obey nor charm nor spell!
My brother is in heaven. Thou sainted spirit,
Burst on our sight, a passing visitant! 85
Once more to hear thy voice, once more to see thee,
O 'twere a joy to me!

Alvar. A joy to thee!
What if thou heard'st him now? What if his spirit
Re-enter'd its cold corse, and came upon thee
With many a stab from many a murderer's poniard? 90
What if (his stedfast eye still beaming pity
And brother's love) he turn'd his head aside,
Lest he should look at thee, and with one look
Hurl thee beyond all power of penitence?