Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It sinks and wavers like this cone of flame, 45

Beyond which I scarce dare look onward! Oh!

If I faint? If this inhuman den should be

At once my deathbed and my burial vault?

[Faintly screams as ALVAR emerges from the recess.

Alvar (rushes towards her, and catches her as she is falling).

O gracious heaven! it is, it is Teresa!

Shall I reveal myself? The sudden shock 50

Of rapture will blow out this spark of life,

And joy complete what terror has begun.

O ye impetuous beatings here, be still!

Teresa, best beloved! pale, pale, and cold!

Her pulse doth flutter! Teresa! my Teresa! 55

Teresa (recovering). I heard a voice; but often in my dreams

I hear that voice! and wake and try — and try —

To hear it waking! but I never could —

And ‘tis so now — even so! Well! he is dead —

Murdered perhaps! and I am faint, and feel 60

As if it were no painful thing to die!

Alvar. Believe it not, sweet maid! Believe it not,

Belovéd woman! ‘Twas a low imposture

Framed by a guilty wretch.

Teresa. Ha! Who art thou?

Alvar. Suborned by his brother —

Teresa. Didst thou murder him? 65

And dost thou now repent? Poor troubled man,

I do forgive thee, and may Heaven forgive thee!

Alvar. Ordonio — he —

Teresa. If thou didst murder him —

His spirit ever at the throne of God

Asks mercy for thee: prays for mercy for thee, 70

With tears in Heaven!

Alvar. Alvar was not murdered.

Be calm! Be calm, sweet maid!

Teresa. Nay, nay, but tell me! [A pause.

O ‘tis lost again!

This dull confuséd pain — [A pause.

Mysterious man!

Methinks I can not fear thee: for thine eye 75

Doth swim with love and pity — Well! Ordonio —

Oh my foreboding heart! And he suborned thee,

And thou didst spare his life? Blessings shower on thee,

As many as the drops twice counted o’er

In the fond faithful heart of his Teresa! 80

Alvar. I can endure no more. The Moorish sorcerer

Exists but in the stain upon his face.

That picture —

Teresa. Ha! speak on!

Alvar. Beloved Teresa!

It told but half the truth. O let this portrait

Tell all — that Alvar lives — that he is here! 85

Thy much deceived but ever faithful Alvar.

[Takes her portrait from his neck, and gives it her.

Teresa (receiving the portrait). The same — it is the same! Ah!

Who art thou?

Nay, I will call thee, Alvar! [She falls on his neck.

Alvar. O joy unutterable!

But hark! a sound as of removing bars

At the dungeon’s outer door. A brief, brief while 90

Conceal thyself, my love! It is Ordonio.

For the honour of our race, for our dear father;

O for himself too (he is still my brother)

Let me recall him to his nobler nature,

That he may wake as from a dream of murder! 95

O let me reconcile him to himself,

Open the sacred source of penitent tears,

And be once more his own beloved Alvar.

Teresa. O my all virtuous love! I fear to leave thee

With that obdurate man.

Alvar. Thou dost not leave me! 100

But a brief while retire into the darkness:

O that my joy could spread its sunshine round thee!

Teresa. The sound of thy voice shall be my music!

Alvar! my Alvar! am I sure I hold thee?

Is it no dream? thee in my arms, my Alvar! [Exit. 105

[A noise at the Dungeon door. It opens, and ORDONIO

enters, with a goblet in his hand.

Ordonio. Hail, potent wizard! in my gayer mood

I poured forth a libation to old Pluto,

And as I brimmed the bowl, I thought on thee.

Thou hast conspired against my life and honour,

Hast tricked me foully; yet I hate thee not. 110

Why should I hate thee? this same world of ours,

‘Tis but a pool amid a storm of rain,

And we the air-bladders that course up and down,

And joust and tilt in merry tournament;

And when one bubble runs foul of another, 115

The weaker needs must break.

Alvar. I see thy heart!

There is a frightful glitter in thine eye

Which doth betray thee. Inly-tortured man,

This is the revelry of a drunken anguish,

Which fain would scoff away the pang of guilt, 120

And quell each human feeling.

Ordonio. Feeling! feeling!

The death of a man — the breaking of a bubble —

‘Tis true I cannot sob for such misfortunes;

But faintness, cold and hunger — curses on me

If willingly I e’er inflicted them! 125

Come, take the beverage; this chill place demands it.

[ORDONIO proffers the goblet.

Alvar. Yon insect on the wall,

Which moves this way and that its hundred limbs,

Were it a toy of mere mechanic craft,

It were an infinitely curious thing! 130

But it has life, Ordonio! life, enjoyment!

And by the power of its miraculous will

Wields all the complex movements of its frame

Unerringly to pleasurable ends!

Saw I that insect on this goblet’s brim 135

I would remove it with an anxious pity!

Ordonio. What meanest thou?

Alvar. There’s poison in the wine.

Ordonio. Thou hast guessed right; there’s poison in the wine.

There’s poison in’t — which of us two shall drink it?

For one of us must die!

Alvar. Whom dost thou think me? 140

Ordonio. The accomplice and sworn friend of Isidore.

Alvar. I know him not.

And yet methinks, I have heard the name but lately.

Means he the husband of the Moorish woman?

Isidore? Isidore? 145

Ordonio. Good! good! that lie! by heaven it has restored me.

Now I am thy master! — Villain! thou shalt drink it,

Or die a bitterer death.

Alvar. What strange solution

Hast thou found out to satisfy thy fears,

And drug them to unnatural sleep?

[ALVAR takes the goblet, and throws it to the ground.

My master! 150

Ordonio. Thou mountebank!

Alvar. Mountebank and villain!

What then art thou? For shame, put up thy sword!

What boots a weapon in a withered arm?

I fix mine eye upon thee, and thou tremblest!

I speak, and fear and wonder crush thy rage, 155

And turn it to a motionless distraction!

Thou blind self-worshipper! thy pride, thy cunning,

Thy faith in universal villainy,

Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn

For all thy human brethren — out upon them! 160

What have they done for thee? have they given thee peace?

Cured thee of starting in thy sleep? or made

The darkness pleasant when thou wak’st at midnight?

Art happy when alone? Can’st walk by thyself

With even step and quiet cheerfulness? 165

Yet, yet thou may’st be saved ——

Ordonio. Saved? saved?

Alvar. One pang!

Could I call up one pang of true remorse!

Ordonio. He told me of the babes that prattled to him.

His fatherless little ones! remorse! remorse!

Where got’st thou that fool’s word? Curse on remorse! 170

Can it give up the dead, or recompact

A mangled body? mangled — dashed to atoms!

Not all the blessings of a host of angels

Can blow away a desolate widow’s curse!

And though thou spill thy heart’s blood for atonement, 175

It will not weigh against an orphan’s tear!

Alvar. But Alvar ——

Ordonio. Ha! it chokes thee in the throat,

Even thee; and yet I pray thee speak it out.

Still Alvar! — Alvar! — howl it in mine ear!

Heap it like coals of fire upon my heart, 180

And shoot it hissing through my brain!

Alvar. Alas!

That day when thou didst leap from off the rock

Into the waves, and grasped thy sinking brother,