SPIRIT. Mortal! thine hour is come-Away! I say. MAN. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not To render up my soul to such as thee: Away! I'll die as I have lived--alone. SPIRIT. Then I must summon up my brethren.-- Rise! [Other Spirits rise up. ABBOT. Avaunt! ye evil ones!-Avaunt! I say,-Ye have no power where piety hath power, And I do charge ye in the name SPIRIT. Old man! We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; It were in vain; this man is forfeited. Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath SPIRIT. Reluctant mortal! Is this the Magian who would so pervade The world invisible, and make himself Almost our equal?---Can it be that thou Art thus in love with life? the very life Which made thee wretched! MAN. Thou false fiend, thou liest! My life is in its last hour,---that I know, Nor would redeem a moment of that hour; SPIRIT. Have made thee MAN. But thy many crimes What are they to such as thee? Must crimes be punished but by other crimes, A torture which could nothing gain from thine: And its own place and time---its innate sense, Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me; I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey--- [The Demons disappear. ABBOT. Alas! how pale thou art---thy lips are white-- And thy breast heaves---and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle--Give thy prayers to heaven--Pray---albeit but in thought,---but die not thus. MAN. 'Tis over---my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well,--Give me thy hand. Аввот Cold---cold---even to the heart-- But yet one prayer---alas! how fares it with thee ?-Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. MAN. [MANFRED expires. ABBOT. He's gone---his soul hath ta'en its earth less flight-- Whither? I dread to think---but he is gone. NOTES TO MANFRED. Note 1, page 98, lines 11 and 12. the sunbow's rays still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven. This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over the lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly like a rainbow, come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it :-this effect lasts till noon. Note 2, page 102, lines 3 and 4. He who from out their fountain dwellings raised The philosopher Iamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life, by EunapiIt is well told. us. Note 3, page 105, lines 26 and 27. she replied In words of dubious import, but fulfill'd. The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta, (who commanded the Greeks at the batttle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedemohians) and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the Sophist, in ́his decription of Greece. "That the Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," &c. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." Genesis, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4. |