Offered her gold to be what she made others,
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,
And smote him in the face!
Lara.
And does that prove
That Preciosa is above suspicion?

Don C. It proves a nobleman may be repulsed,
When he thinks conquest easy. I believe
That woman, in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!
Lara. Yet Preciosa would have taken the
gold.

Don C. (rising). I do not think so.
I am sure of it.

Lara.

But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer.
And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.

Don C. "T is late. I must begone, for if I stay
You will not be persuaded.

Lara.

Yes; persuade me.

down your heads. It is no disgrace to have an old father and a ragged shirt. Now, look you, you are gentlemen who lead the life of crickets; you enjoy hunger by day and noise by night. Yet, I beseech you, for this once be not loud, but pathetic; for it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the Man in the Moon. Your object is not to arouse and terrify, but to socthe and bring lulling dreams. Therefore, each shall not play upon his instrument as if it were the only one in the universe, but gently, and with a certain modesty, according with the others. Pray, how may I call thy name, friend?

First Mus. Gerónimo Gil, at your service. Ch spa. Every tub smells of the wine that is in it. Pray, Gerónimo, is not Saturday an unpleasant day with thee?

First Mus. Why so?

Chispa. Because I have heard it said that Saturday is an unpleasant day with those who have but one shirt. Moreover, I have seen thee

Don C. No one so deaf as he who will not at the tavern, and if thou canst run as fast as hear!

Lara. No one so blind as he who will not see! Don C. And so good night. I wish you pleasant dreams,

And greater faith in woman.

Lara.

[Exit.

Greater faith!

I have the greatest faith; for I believe
Victorian is her lover. I believe

That I shall be to-morrow; and thereafter
Another, and another, and another,

Chasing each other through her zodiac,
As Taurus chases Aries.

(Enter FRANCISCO with a casket.)

What speed with Preciosa?

Fran.

Well, Francisco,

None, my lord.

She sends your jewels back, and bids me tell

you

She is not to be purchased by your gold.

Chispa. A pleasing instrument. And thou?
Fourth Mus. The fife.

Chispa. I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that soars up to my lady's window like the song of a swallow. And you others?

Other Mus. We are the singers, please your honor.

Chispa. You are too many. Do you think we are going to sing mass in the cathedral of Córdova? Four men can make but little use of one

Lara. Then I will try some other way to win shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one

her.

Pray, dost thou know Victorian?
Fran.

Yes, my lord;
I saw him at the jeweller's to-day.
Lara. What was he doing there?
Fran.
I saw him buy
A golden ring, that had a ruby in it.
ara. Was there another like it?
Fran.
One so like it
I could not choose between them.
It is well.

Lara.
To-morrow morning bring that ring to me.
Do not forget. Now light me to my bed.

[Exeunt. SCENE II-A street in Madrid. Enter CHISPA, followed by musicians, with a bagpipe, guitars,

and other instruments.

Chispa. Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague on all lovers who ramble about at night, drinking the elements, instead of sleeping quietly in their beds. Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to his monastery. Now, here's my master, Victorian, yesterday a cow-keeper, and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student, and today a lover; and I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot sings so must the Sacristan respond. God grant he may soon be married, for then shall all this serenading cease. Ay, marry! marry! marry! Mother, what does marry mean? It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my daughter! And, of a truth, there is something more in matrimony than the wedding-ring. (To the musicians.) And now, gentlemen, Pax vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages. Pray, walk this way; and don't hang

song. But follow me along the garden wall.
That is the way my master climbs to the lady's
window. It is by the Vicar's skirts that the
Devil climbs into the belfry. Come, follow me,
and make no noise.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-PRECIOSA'S chamber. She stands
at the open window.

Prec. How slowly through the lilac-scented air
Descends the tranquil moon! Like thistle-down
The vapory clouds float in the peaceful sky;
And sweetly from yon hollow vaults of shade
The nightingales breathe out their souls in song.
And hark! what songs of love, what soul-like
sounds,
Answer them from below!

SERENADE.

Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!

Sleeps!

Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!

My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

It was at Córdova,

Prec. I am so frightened! "T is for thee I In the cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting tremble!

I hate to have thee climb that wall by night!

Did no one see thee?
Vict.

None, my love, but thou. Prec. "T is very dangerous; and when thou art gone

I chide myself for letting thee come here
Thus stealthily by night. Where hast thou been?
Since yesterday I have no news from thee.

Vict. Since yesterday I have been in Alcalá.
Erelong the time will come, sweet Preciosa,
When that dull distance shall no more divide
us;

And I no more shall scale thy wall by night
To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now.

Prec. An honest thief, to steal but what thou
givest.

Vict. And we shall sit together unmolested, And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue,

As singing birds from one bough to another.

Prec. That were a life to make time envious!
I knew that thou wouldst come to me to-night.
I saw thee at the play.

Vict.

Sweet child of air!
Never did I behold thee so attired
And garmented in beauty as to-night!
What hast thou done to make thee look so fair?
Prec. Am I not always fair?
Vict.

Ay, and so fair

That I am jealous of all eyes that see thee,
And wish that they were blind.
Prec.

I heed them not;
When thou art present, I see none but thee!
Vict. There's nothing fair nor beautiful, but
takes

Something from thee, that makes it beautiful.
Prec. And yet thou leavest me for those dusty
books.

Vict. Thou comest between me and those books too often!

I see thy face in everything I see!

The paintings in the chapel wear thy looks,
The canticles are changel to sarabands,

And with the learned doctors of the schools
I see thee dance cachuchas.

I dance with learned doctors of the schools
To-morrow morning.

Vict. And with whom, I pray?

Pree. A grave and reverend Cardinal, and his
Grace

The Archbishop of Toledo.

Viet.

Is this?

Under the orange trees, beside a fountain.

Prec. T was Easter-Sunday. The full-blos-
somed trees

Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.
The priests were singing, and the organ sounded,
And then anon the great cathedral bell.
It was the elevation of the Host.
We both of us fell down upon our knees,
Under the orange boughs, and prayed together.
I never had been happy till that moment.
Vict. Thou blessed angel!
Prec.

And when thou wast gone
I felt an aching here. I did not speak
To any one that day. But from that day
Bartolome grew hateful unto me.
Vict. Remember him no more. Let not his

shadow

Come between thee and me. Sweet Preciosa!
I loved thee even then, though I was silent!
Prec. I thought I ne'er should see thy face
again.

Thy farewell had a sound of sorrow in it.

Vict. That was the first sound in the song of

love!

Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate. We hear
The voice prophetic, and are not alone.

Prec. That is my faith. Dost thou believe
these warnings?

Vict. So far as this. Our feelings and our
thoughts

Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present.
As drops of rain fall into some dark weil,
And from below comes a scarce audible sound,
So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter,
And their mysterious echo reaches us.

Prec. I have felt it so, but found no words to
say it!

I cannot reason; I can only feel!

But thou hast language for all thoughts and feel-
ings.

Thou art a scholar; and sometimes I think
We cannot walk together in this world!
The distance that divides us is too great!
Henceforth thy pathway lies among the stars;
I must not hold thee back.

Vict.

Thou little sceptic! Dost thou still doubt? What I most prize in)

woman

Is her affections, not her intellect !
The intellect is finite; but the affections
What mad jest Are infinite, and cannot be exhausted.
Compare me with the great men of the earth;
What am I? Why, a pygmy among giants!
But if thou lovest,-mark me! I say lovest,
The greatest of thy sex excels thee not!
The world of the affections is thy world,
Not that of man's ambition. In that stillness
Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy
Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,
Feeding its flame. The element of fire
Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature,
But burns as brightly in a Gypsy camp
As in a palace hall. Art thou convinced?
Prec. Yes, that I love thee, as the good love
heaven;

Prec. It is no jest; Indeed it is not.
Vict.
Prithee, explain thyself.
Prec.
Why, simply thus.
Thou knowest the Pope has sent here into Spain
To put a stop to dances on the stage.
Vict. I have heard it whispered.
Prec.
Now the Cardinal,
Who for this purpose comes, would fain behold
With his own eyes these dances; and the Arch-
bishop

Has sent for me

Vict. That thou mayst dance before them!
Now viva la cachucha! It will breathe
The fire of youth into these gray old men!
"T will be thy proudest conquest!

But not that I am worthy of that heaven.
How shall I more deserve it?

I'll tell thee a story of my wedding-day."

Of the old woman in the chimney-corner,
Her tender limbs are still, and on her breast
Who, while the pot boils, says, "Come here, my The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep,
child;
Rises and fails with the soft tide of dre
dreams
Like a light barge safe moored.
11.
Which means, in prose,
She's sleeping with her mouth a little open!
Vict. O, would I had the old magician's glass
To see her as she lies in childlike sleep!
Hyp. And wouldst thou venture?
Vict.

Vict. Nay, listen, for my heart is full; so full That I must speak.

Нур.

Alas! that heart of thine
Is like a scene in the old play; the curtain
Rises to solemn music, and lo! enter
The eleven thousand virgins of Cologne !
Vict. Nay, like the Sibyl's volumes, thou
shouldst say;

Those that remained, after the six were burned,
Being held more precious than the nine together.
But listen to my tale. Dost thou remember
The Gypsy girl we saw at Córdova

Dance the Romalis in the market-place?
Hyp. Thou meanest Preciosa.
Vict.

Ay, the same.

Vict.

O pardon me, my friend,
If I so long have kept this secret from thee;
But silence is the charm that guards such treasures,
And, if a word be spoken ere the time,
They sink again, they were not meant for us.
Hyp. Alas! alas! I see thou art in love.
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
It serves for food and raiment. Give a Spaniard
His mass, his olla, and his Doña Luisa-
Thou knowest the proverb. But pray tell me,
lover,

How speeds thy wooing? Is the maiden coy?
Write her a song, beginning with an Ave;
Sing as the monk sang to the Virgin Mary,

Ay, indeed I would!
Hyp. Thou art courageous.
Hast thou e'er

reflected

How much lies hidden in that one word, now?
Vict. Yes; all the awful mystery of Life!
I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito,
That could we, by some spell of magic, change
The world and its inhabitants to stone,

In the same attitudes they now are in,
What fearful glances downward might we cast
Into the hollow chasms of human life!

What groups should we behold about the death-
bed,

Putting to shame the group of Niobe!
What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells!
What stony tears in those congealed eyes!
What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks!
What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows!
What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling!
What lovers with their marble lips together!

Hyp. Ay, there it is! and, if I were in love,
That is the very point I most should dread.
This magic glass, these magic spells of thine,
Might tell a tale were better left untold.
For instance, they might show us thy fair cousin,
The Lady Violante, bathed in tears

Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis,
Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut,
Having won that golden fleece, a woman's love,
Desertest for this Glaucè.

Vict.

[Exit. Good night.

But not to bed; for I must read awhile.
(Throws himself into the arm-chair which HYPO-
LITO has left, and lays a large book open upon
his knees.)

Must read, or sit in revery and watch

The changing color of the waves that break
Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind!
Visions of Fame! that once did visit me,
Making night glorious with your smile, where
are ye?

O, who shall give me, now that ye are gone,
Juices of those immortal plants that bloom
Upon Olympus, making us immortal?
Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows
Whose magic root, torn from the earth wit.