Or make the infant's sinew strong as steel.
This day's the birth of sorrows! This hour's work
Will breed proscriptions. Look to your hearths, my lords!
For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes, hot from Tartarus ;-all shames and crimes;
Wan treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked rebellion, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till anarchy comes down on you like night,
And massacre seals Rome's eternal grave!
Senators. Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome!
Cat. (Indignantly.) It shall be so!-(Going. He sud-
denly returns.)-When Catiline comes again,
Your grandeur shall be base, and clowns shall sit
In scorn upon those chairs.
Then Cicero and his tools shall pay me blood--
Vengeance for every drop of my boy's veins ;-
And such of you as cannot find the grace
To die with swords in your right hands, shall feel
The life, life worse than death, of trampled slaves!
Senators. Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome!
Cic. Expel him, lictors! Clear the senate-house!
Cat. I go, but not to leap the gulf alone!
I go ;-but when I come 'twill be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake rolling back
In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!—
You build my funeral pile, but your best blood
Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves! (To the lictors.)
I will return!
King. Art thou the chief of that unruly band
Who broke the treaty and assailed the Moors?
Youth. No chief, no leader of a band am I.
The leader of a band insulted me,
And those he led, basely assailed my life;
With bad success indeed. If self-defense
Be criminal, O King! I have offended.
King. With what a noble confidence he speaks! See what a spirit through his blushes breaks! Observe him, Hamet.
Hamet. I am fixed upon him.
King. Didst thou alone engage a band of Moors,
And make such havoc? Sure, it cannot be.
Recall thy scattered thoughts. Nothing advance
Which proof may overthrow.
No proof can overthrow. Where is the man,
Who, speaking from himself, not from reports
And rumors idle, will stand forth and say,
I was not single when the Moors attacked me?
Ham. I will not be that man, though I confess
That I came hither to accuse thee, youth,
And to demand thy punishment.—I brought
The tale our soldiers told.
Youth. The tale was false.
Ham. I thought it true, but thou hast shook my faith. The seal of truth is on thy gallant form,
For none but cowards lie.
With every circumstance which may explain
The seeming wonder; how a single man
In such a strife could stand?
Youth.
A wonder when thou hearest the story told.
This morning on my road to Oviedo,
A while I halted near a Moorish post.
Of the commander I inquired my way,
And told my purpose; that I came to see
The famous combat. With a scornful smile,
With taunting words and gestures he replied,
Mocking my youth; advised me to return
Back to my father's house, and in the ring
To dance with boys and girls. He added, too,
That I should see no combat: That no knight
Of Spain durst meet the champion of the Moors.
Incensed, I did indeed retort his scorn.
The quarrel grew apace, and I defied him
To a green hill, which rose amidst the plain,
An arrow's flight or farther from his post.
Alone we sped: alone we drew, we fought.
Enraged, his men
Secure they came,
Those who came first,
The Moorish captain fell.
Flew to revenge his death.
Each with his utmost speed.
Single, I met and slew. More wary grown,
The rest together joined, and all at once
Assailed me. Then I had no hopes of life.
But suddenly a troop of Spaniards came
And charged my foes, who did not long sustain
The shock, but fled, and carried to their camp
That false report which thou, O king! hast heard.
King. Now by my sceptre and my sword I swear
Thou art a noble youth. An angel's voice
Could not command a more implicit faith
Than thou from me hast gained. What thinkest thou, Hamet? Is he not greatly wronged?
The voice of truth and innocence is bold,
And never yet could guilt that tone assume.
I take my leave, impatient to return,
And satisfy my friends that this brave youth
Was not the aggressor.
King. I expect no less from generous Hamet.
-Tell me, wondrous youth!
For much I long to know, what is thy name?
Who are thy parents? Since the Moor prevailed,
The cottage and the cave have oft concealed
From hostile hate the noblest blood of Spain;
Thy spirit speaks for thee. Thou art a shoot
Of some illustrious stock, some noble house,
Whose fortunes with their falling country fell.
Youth. Alberto is my name. I draw my birth
From Catalania; in the mountains there
My father dwells, and for his own domains
Pays tribute to the Moor.
Oft I have heard him of your battles speak,
Of Cavadonga's and Olalle's field.
But ever since I can remember aught,
His chief employment and delight have been
To train me to the use and love of arms:
In martial exercise we passed the day;
Morning and evening, still the theme was war.
He bred me to endure the summer's heat
And brave the winter's cold; to swim across
The headlong torrent when the shoals of ice
Drove down the stream; to rule the fiercest steeds
That on our mountains run. No savage beast
The forest yields that I have not encountered.
Meanwhile my bosom beat for nobler game;
I longed in arms to meet the foes of Spain.
Oft I implored my father to permit me,
Before the truce was made, to join the host.
He said it must not be, I was too young
For the rude service of these trying times.
King. Thou art a prodigy, and fillest my mind
With thoughts profound, and expectation high.
When in a nation, humbled by the will
Of Providence, beneath a haughty foe,
A person rises up, by nature reared,
Sublime, above the level of mankind;
Like that bright bow the hand of the Most High
Bends in the watery cloud: He is the sign
Of prosperous change and interposing Heaven.
Let us be sure 'tis he himself.
Our general.
Fifth Dale. And we will fight while weapons can be found. Sixth Dale. Or hands to wield them.
Amazement, I perceive, hath filled your hearts,
And joy for that your lost Gustavus 'scaped
Through wounds, imprisonments, and chains, and deaths,
Thus sudden, thus unlooked for, stands before ye.
As one escaped from cruel hands I come,
From hearts that ne'er knew pity, dark and vengeful;
Who quaff the tears of orphans, bathe in blood,
And know no music but the groans of Sweden.
Yet, not because my sister's early innocence-
My mother's age now grind beneath captivity;
Nor that one bloody, one remorseless hour
Swept my great sire and kindred from my side;
For them, Gustavus weeps not.
But, O great parent, when I think on thee!
Thy numberless, thy nameless, shameful infamies,
My widowed country! Sweden! when I think
Upon thy desolation, spite of rage-
And vengeance that would choke them-tears will flow.
Anderson. Oh, they are villains, every Dane of them.
Practiced to stab and smile: to stab the babe,
That smiles upon them.
Arnoldus. What accursed hours
Roll o'er those wretches, who, to fiends like these
In their dear liberty have bartered more
Than worlds will rate for?
Gust. O liberty, heaven's choice prerogative!
True bond of law, thou social soul of property,
Thou breath of reason, life of life itself!
For thee the valiant bleed. O sacred liberty!
Winged from the summer's snare, from flattering ruin,
Like the bold stork you seek the wintry shore,
Leave courts, and pomps, and palaces to slaves,
Cleave to the cold and rest upon the storm.
Upborne by thee, my soul disdained the terms
Of empire offered at the hand of tyrants.
With thee I sought this favorite soil; with thee
These favorite sons I sought: thy sons, O Liberty!
For even amid the wilds of life you lead them,
Lift their low-raftered cottage to the clouds,
Smile o'er their heaths, and from their mountain tops
Beam glory to the nations.
Gust. Are ye not marked, ye men of Dalecarlia,
Are ye not marked by all the circling world
As the great stake, the last effort for liberty?
Say, is it not your wealth, the thirst, the food,
The scope and bright ambition of your souls?
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