And cast into that hole. My husband’s fatherSobbed like a child — it almost broke his heart:
And once he was working near this dungeon,
He heard a voice distinctly; ‘twas the youth’s,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields, 55
How sweet it were on lake or wide savanna
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death, 60
He made that cunning entrance I described,
And the young man escaped.
Teresa. ‘Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.
And what became of him?
Selma. He went on shipboard 65
With those bold voyagers who made discovery
Of golden lands. Sesina’s younger brother
Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,
He told Sesina, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arrived in that new world, 70
In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
And all alone set sail by silent moonlight
Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne’er was heard of more: but ‘tis supposed,
He lived and died among the savage men. 75
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
TO
H. MARTIN, ESQ.
OF
JESUS COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE
DEAR SIR,
Accept, as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following
Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting
form, the fall of a man, whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous
lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot
could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts,
it has been my sole aim to imitate the empassioned and highly figurative
language of the French orators, and to develope the characters of the
chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
Yours fraternally,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
JESUS COLLEGE, September 22, 1794.
ACT I
SCENE — The Thuilleries.
Barrere. The tempest gathers — be it mine to seek
A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.
But where? and how? I fear the Tyrant’s soul —
Sudden in action, fertile in resource,
And rising awful ‘mid impending ruins; 5
In splendor gloomy, as the midnight meteor,
That fearless thwarts the elemental war.
When last in secret conference we met,
He scowl’d upon me with suspicious rage,
Making his eye the inmate of my bosom. 10
I know he scorns me — and I feel, I hate him —
Yet there is in him that which makes me tremble! [Exit.
Enter TALLIEN and LEGENDRE.
Tallien. It was Barrere, Legendre! didst thou mark him?
Abrupt he turn’d, yet linger’d as he went,
And towards us cast a look of doubtful meaning. 15
Legendre. I mark’d him well. I met his eye’s last glance;
It menac’d not so proudly as of yore.
Methought he would have spoke — but that he dar’d not —
Such agitation darken’d on his brow.
Tallien. ‘Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting 20
Th’ imprison’d secret struggling in the face:
E’en as the sudden breeze upstarting onwards
Hurries the thundercloud, that pois’d awhile
Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen.
Legendre. Perfidious Traitor! — still afraid to bask 25
In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent
Lurks in the thicket of the Tyrant’s greatness,
Ever prepared to sting who shelters him.
Each thought, each action in himself converges;
And love and friendship on his coward heart 30
Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice;
To all attach’d, by turns deserting all,
