Yet there was one

Witch.

Spare not thyself — proceed.

Man. She was like me in lineaments - her eyes,
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone

Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears—which I had not;
And tenderness but that I had for her;
Humility and that I never had.

Her faults were mine - her virtues were her own-
I loved her, and destroy'd her!

Witch.

With thy hand?

Man. Not with my hand, but heart-which broke

It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed

Blood, but not hers—and yet her blood was shed

I saw - and could not stanch it.

Witch.

And for this

A being of the race thou dost despise,
The order which thine own would rise above,
Mingling with us and ours, thou dost forego
The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back
To recreant mortality -Away!

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour
But words are breath - look on me in my sleep,
Or watch my watchings - Come and sit by me!
My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the Furies; — I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then curst myself till sunset; — I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing— 't is denied me.
I have affronted death - but in the war

Of elements the waters shrunk from me,

And fatal things pass'd harmless the cold hand
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back,

Back by a single hair, which would not break.
In fantasy, imagination, all

The affluence of my soul- which one day was
A Croesus in creation - I plunged deep,
But, like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back
Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought.
I plunged amidst mankind — Forgetfulness
I sought in all, save where 't is to be found,
And that I have to learn; - my sciences,
My long-pursued and superhuman art,
Is mortal here - I dwell in my despair ·

Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them.

— in any shape — in any hour

Do so

With any torture so it be the last.

Witch. That is not in my province; but if thou

Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do

My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.

Man. I will not swear - Obey ! and whom? the spirits

Whose presence I command, and be the slave

Of those who served me - Never!

Witch.

Is this all?

Hast thou no gentler answer? — Yet bethink thee,
And pause ere thou rejectest.

Man. (alone). We are the fools of time and terror:

Days

Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
In all the days of this detested yoke –

This vital weight upon the struggling heart,
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,

Or joy that ends in agony or faintness

In all the days of past and future, for

In life there is no present, we can number

How few how less than few wherein the soul

---

Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment's. I have one resource
Still in my science — I can call the dead,
And ask them what it is we dread to be:

The sternest answer can but be the Grave,
And that is nothing; - if they answer not
The buried Prophet answered to the Hag

Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew
From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit
An answer and his destiny - he slew

That which he loved, unknowing what he slew,

And died unpardon'd - though he call'd in aid
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused
The Arcadian Evocators to compel

The indignant shadow to depose her wrath,
Or fix her term of vengeance · she replied
In words of dubious import, but fulfill'd.
If I had never lived, that which I love
Had still been living; had I never loved,
That which I love would still be beautiful -
Happy and giving happiness. What is she?

A thing I dare not think upon or nothing.
Within few hours I shall not call in vain —

Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze

On spirit, good or evil

- now I tremble,

And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart.

But I can act even what I most abhor,

And champion human fears. — The night approaches.

[Exit.

ASTARTE.

(MANFRED, Act ii. Scene 4.)

The Hall of Arimanes. - Arimanes on his Throne, a Globe of Fire, surrounded by the Spirits.

Enter the DESTINIES and NEMESIS; then MANFred.

A Spirit.

What is here?

A mortal! Thou most rash and fatal wretch!

Bow down and worship!

Second Spirit.

I do know the man

A Magian of great power, and fearful skill!

Third Spirit. Bow down and worship, slave! What, know'st thou not

Thine and our Sovereign? - Tremble, and obey!

All the Spirits. Prostrate thyself, and thy condemned

clay,

Child of the Earth! or dread the worst.

On the bare ground, have I bow'd down my face,
And strew'd my head with ashes; I have known
The fulness of humiliation, for

I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt

To my own desolation.

Fifth Spirit.

Dost thou dare

Refuse to Arimanes on his throne

What the whole earth accords, beholding not

The terror of his Glory? - Crouch! I say.

Man. Bid him bow down to that which is above him,

The overruling Infinite -the Maker

Who made him not for worship— let him kneel,

And we will kneel together.