The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1040]
In "The Spanish Student" of Mr. Longfellow, at page 80, will be found what follows:
Scene IV. — Preciosa's chamber. She is sitting with a book in her hand near a table, on which are flowers. A bird singing in its cage. The Count of Lara enters behind, unperceived.
Preciosa reads.
All are sleeping, weary heart.
Thou, thou only sleepless art!
Heigho! I wish Victorian were here.
I know not what it is makes me so restless!
Thou little prisoner with thy motly coat,
That from thy vaulted, wiry dungeon singest,
Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee,
I have a gentle gaoler. Lack-a-day!
All are sleeping, weary heart!
Thou, thou only sleepless art!
All this throbbing, all this aching,
Evermore shall keep thee waking,
For a heart in sorrow breaking
Thinketh ever of its smart!
Thou speakest truly, poet! and methinks
More hearts are breaking in this world of ours
Than one would say. In distant villages
And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted
The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage
Scattered them in their flight, do they take root,
And grow in silence, and in silence perish.
Who hears the falling of the forest leaf?
Or who takes note of every flower that dies?
Heigho! I wish Victorian would come.
Dolores! [Turns to lay down her book, and perceives the Count.] Ha! [[this line should be indented]]
Lara. Senora, pardon me.
Preciosa. How's this? Dolores!
Lara. Pardon me —
Preciosa. Dolores!
Lara. Be not alarmed; I found no one in waiting.
If I have been too bold ——
Preciosa [turning her back upon him]. You are too bold!
Retire! retire, and leave me!
Lara. My dear lady,
First hear me! I beseech you, let me speak!
'Tis for your good I come.
Preciosa [turning toward him with indignation.] Begone! begone!
You are the Count of Lara, but your deeds
Would make the statues of your ancestors
Blush on their tombs! Is it Castilian honor,
Is it Castilian pride, to steal in here
Upon a friendless girl, to do her wrong?
O shame! shame! shame! that you, a nobleman,
Should be so little noble in your thoughts
As to send jewels here to win my love,
And think to buy my honor with your gold!
I have no words to tell you how I scorn you!
Begone! The sight of you is hateful to me!
Begone, I say!
A few passages farther on, in the same scene, we meet the following stage directions: — "he tries to embrace her, she starts back and draws a dagger from her bosom." A little farther still and "Victorian enters behind." Compare all this with a "Scene from Politian, an Unpublished Tragedy by Edgar A. Poe," to be found in the second volume of the "Southern Literary Messenger."
The scene opens with the following stage directions:
A lady's apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden. Lalage in deep mourning, reading at a table, on which lie some books and a hand mirror. In the back ground, JACINTA leans carelessly on the back of a chair. . . . . . .
Lalage reading. "It in another climate, so he said,
Bore a bright golden flower but not i' this soil.
[Pauses, turns over some leaves, and then resumes.]
No ling'ring winters there, nor snow, nor shower,
But ocean ever, to refresh mankind,
Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind."
Oh, beautiful! most beautiful! how like
To what my fever'd soul doth dream of Heaven!
O happy land! [pauses.] She died — the maiden died —
O still more happy maiden who could'nt die.
Jacinta! [Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes.]
Again a similar tale,
Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!
Thus speaketh one Ferdinand i' the words of the play,
"She died full young" — one Bossola answers him
"I think not so; her infelicity
Seemed to have years too many." Ah luckless lady!
Jacinta! [Still no answer.] Here's a far sterner