Jul. Arise, my love,
Look up to heaven—where else are souls like thine!
Mingle in sweet communion with its children,
Trust in its providence, its retribution,
And I will cease to mourn; for, O my child,
These tears corrode, but thine assuage the heart.
Cov. And never shall I see my mother too,
My own, my blessed mother!
Jul. Thou shalt see
Her and thy brothers.
Cov. No! I cannot look
On them, I cannot meet their lovely eyes,
I cannot lift mine up from under theirs.
We all were children when they went away,
They now have fought hard battles, and are men,
And camps and kings they know, and woes and crimes.
Sir, will they never venture from the walls
Into the plain? Remember, they are young,
Hardy and emulous and hazardous,
And who is left to guard them in the town?
Jul. Peace is throughout the land: the various tribes
Of that vast region, sink at once to rest,
Like one wide wood when every wind lies hush’d.
Cov. And war, in all its fury, roams o’er Spain!
Jul. Alas! and will for ages: crimes are loose
At which ensanguined War stands shuddering;
And calls for vengeance from the powers above,
Impatient of inflicting it himself.
Nature, in these new horrors, is aghast
At her own progeny, and knows them not.
I am the minister of wrath; the hands
That tremble at me, shall applaud me too,
And seal their condemnation.
Cov. O kind father,
Pursue the guilty, but remember Spain.
Jul. Child, thou wert in thy nursery short time since,
And latterly hast past the vacant hour
Where the familiar voice of history
Is hardly known, however nigh, attuned
In softer accents to the sickened ear;
But thou hast heard, for nurses tell these tales,
Whether I drew my sword for Witiza
Abandoned by the people he betrayed,
Tho’ brother to the woman who of all
Was ever dearest to this broken heart,
Till thou, my daughter, wert a prey to grief,
And a brave country brooked the wrongs I bore.
For I had seen Rusilla guide the steps
Of her Theodofred, when burning brass
Plunged its fierce fang into the founts of light,
And Witiza’s the guilt! when, bent with age,
He knew the voice again, and told the name,
Of those whose proffer’d fortunes had been laid
Before his throne, while happiness was there,
And strain’d the sightless nerve tow’rds where they stood
At the forced memory of the very oaths
He heard renewed from each—but heard afar,
For they were loud, and him the throng spurn’d off.
Cov. Who were all these?