approach’dHe waved his hand as bidding me retire: 195
I did not interrupt him. [Returns the letter.
Adelaide. Thou didst rightly. [Exit Servant.
O this new freedom! at how dear a price
We’ve bought the seeming good! The peaceful virtues
And every blandishment of private life,
The father’s cares, the mother’s fond endearment, 200
All sacrificed to liberty’s wild riot.
The wingéd hours, that scatter’d roses round me,
Languid and sad drag their slow course along,
And shake big gall-drops from their heavy wings.
But I will steal away these anxious thoughts 205
By the soft languishment of warbled airs,
If haply melodies may lull the sense
Of sorrow for a while. [Soft music.
Enter TALLIEN.
Tallien. Music, my love? O breathe again that air!
Soft nurse of pain, it sooths the weary soul 210
Of care, sweet as the whisper’d breeze of evening
That plays around the sick man’s throbbing temples.
SONG
Tell me, on what holy ground
May domestic peace be found?
Halcyon daughter of the skies, 215
Far on fearful wing she flies,
From the pomp of scepter’d state,
From the rebel’s noisy hate.
In a cottag’d vale she dwells
List’ning to the Sabbath bells! 220
Still around her steps are seen,
Spotless honor’s meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And conscious of the past employ, 225
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.
Tallien. I thank thee, Adelaide! ‘twas sweet, though mournful.
But why thy brow o’ercast, thy cheek so wan?
Thou look’st as a lorn maid beside some stream
That sighs away the soul in fond despairing, 230
While sorrow sad, like the dank willow near her,
Hangs o’er the troubled fountain of her eye.
Adelaide. Ah! rather let me ask what mystery lowers
On Tallien’s darken’d brow. Thou dost me wrong —
Thy soul distemper’d, can my heart be tranquil? 235
Tallien. Tell me, by whom thy brother’s blood was spilt?
Asks he not vengeance on these patriot murderers?
It has been borne too tamely. Fears and curses
Groan on our midnight beds, and e’en our dreams
Threaten the assassin hand of Robespierre. 240
He dies! — nor has the plot escaped his fears.
Adelaide. Yet — yet — be cautious! much I fear the Commune —
The tyrant’s creatures, and their fate with his
Fast link’d in close indissoluble union.
The pale Convention —
Tallien. Hate him as they fear him, 245
Impatient of the chain, resolv’d and ready.
Adelaide. Th’ enthusiast mob, confusion’s lawless sons —
Tallien. They are aweary of his stern morality,
The fair-mask’d offspring of ferocious pride.
The sections too support the delegates: 250
All — all is ours! e’en now the vital air
Of Liberty, condens’d awhile, is bursting
(Force irresistible!) from its compressure —
To shatter the arch chemist in the explosion!
Enter BILLAUD VARENNES and BOURDON L’OISE.
[ADELAIDE retires.
Bourdon l’Oise. Tallien! was this a time for amorous
conference? 255
Henriot, the tyrant’s most devoted creature,
Marshals the force of Paris: The fierce Club,
With Vivier at their head, in loud acclaim
Have sworn to make the guillotine in blood
Float on the scaffold. — But who comes here? 260
Enter BARRERE abruptly.
Barrere. Say, are ye friends to freedom? I am her’s!
Let us, forgetful of all common feuds,
Rally around her shrine! E’en now the tyrant
Concerts a plan of instant massacre!
Billaud Varennes. Away to the Convention! with that voice 265
So oft the herald of glad victory,
Rouse their fallen spirits, thunder in their ears
The names of tyrant, plunderer, assassin!
The violent workings of my soul within
Anticipate the monster’s blood! 270
[Cry from the street of — No Tyrant! Down with the Tyrant!
Tallien. Hear ye that outcry? — If the trembling members
Even for a moment hold his fate suspended,
I swear by the holy poniard, that stabbed Caesar,
