Describes his path-anon she starts amazed- For soon her erring planet's disk obscure she spies, With arms encumbered a-la-Nap, and stride Makes bold to wipe the actor from his face- Did an Egyptian to my mother give". Egyptian! that's a good un," muttered Kate, "Desdemona, have you prayed to-night? "Nay, then, it is too late ". And following up Othello's act, The spouter straight her throat attacked- While, stoutly now, his Kate displays No science mean, but parries quick-now plants a hitThen, deaf to time, slips down to breathe and scream a bit. Meantime, by-play is rigidly maintained Not by Emelia nor Venetian lords, But armed police, who, quickened to the chase The charge is made but not a word obtained— "Sirrah, where's your wife?" "I have no wife!" Kate, peeping forth from no right wing or upper door, Explains how still her Joe with wife was blest, And how the Moor he only played in jest— ""Twas so, indeed!' and Kate, as one is apt to do Would mark Bring him along! The peace has been disturbed! Nay, wife and all! This passion must be curbed!' Our hero, finding now the scene to change, And more persona cast than Shakspeare drew, Yet still to acting pledged, and to his author true,— And tracing, in his own, a semblance strange To great Othello's fate his eye around He threw to see what he could find, and found A broomstick “Behold! I have a weapon! A better ne'er sustained itself upon a soldier's thigh. Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Struck a Venetian and traduced the state, At length, by fearful odds beleaguered, They dragged him forth disarmed, disfigured- One crimson stream from chin to brow-— In the Lock-up secured, ambition sunk unblest- Next morning, Judgment sent our Souter, To the tread-mill of corrective cast, There to pine In penance prescribed for errors past. May all who blindly feed an itching in their brain obtain, So judge themselves as we have judged the Spouter. SCENE-WILLIAM TELL. Tell. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the hands you first beheld, To show they still are free. Methinks I hear And bid your tenant welcome to his home Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine! Ye are the things that tower, that shine-whose smile Of awe divine-whose subject never kneels Enter ERNI. Erni. Thou'rt sure to keep the time, That com'st before the hour. Tell. The hour, my friend, Will soon be here. O, when will liberty I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow: Of measuring the ample range beneath. The death that threatened him. I could not shoot! 'Twas liberty. I turned my bow aside, And let him soar away. Enter VERNER and FURST. Tell. Here, friends !-Well met!-Do we go on? Verner. We do. Tell. Then you can reckon on the friends Ver. On every man of them. Furst. And I on mine. Erni. Not one I sounded, but doth rate his blood As water in the cause! Then fix the day Before we part. Ver. No, Erni: rather wait For some new outrage to amaze and rouse The common mind, which does not brood so much Tell. I wish with Erni, But I think with thee. Yet, when I ask myself On whom the wrong shall light for which we wait— Whose vineyard they'll uproot-whose flocks they'll ra vage Whose threshold they'll profane-whose earth pollute- The tears of venerable fathers, and The shrieks of mothers, fluttering round their spoil'd Tell. On that we're all agreed. Who fears the issue when the day shall come? To mar this harmony. Nor I, no more As time may press-is word enough. The others The downfall of his power. Remember me Farewell!-When next we meet upon this theme -KNOWLES. SCENE-EMMA. Emma. O, the fresh morning! Heaven's kind messenger, That never empty-handed comes to those Who know to use its gifts. Praise be to Him Albert. My mother! Emma. Albert! Enter ALBERT. Alb. [Descending, and approaching Emma.] Bless thee! Emma. Bless thee, Albert! How early were you up ? Alb. Before the sun. Emma. Ay, strive with him. He never lies a-bed The constant'st workman that goes through his task, With smiling face; for labour's light as ease Alb. What you would have me like, I'll be like, Emma. Well said, my boy! Knelt you, when you got up To-day? Alb. I did; and do so every day. Emma. I know you do! And think you, when you kneel, To whom you kneel? |