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[MANFRED advances to the Window of the Hall.

Glorious Orb! the idol

Of early nature, and the vigorous race
Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons
Of the embrace of angels, with a sex

More beautiful than they, which did draw down

The erring spirits who can ne'er return.

Most glorious orb that wert a worship, ere
The mystery of thy making was reveal'd!
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,

Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour'd
Themselves in orisons! Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown

Who chose thee for his shadow! Thou chief star!
Centre of many stars! which mak'st our earth
Endurable, and temperest the hues

And hearts of all who walk within thy rays!
Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes,
And those who dwell in them! for near or far,
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects;
And shine, and set in glory.

thou dost rise, Fare thee well!

I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first glance
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take
My latest look: thou wilt not beam on one
To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been
Of a more fatal nature. 2 He is gone:
I follow.

[Exit MANFRED.

SCENE III.

The Mountains The Castle of Manfred at some distance-A Terrace before a Tower. - Time, Twilight.

HERMAN, MANUEL, and other Dependants of MANFRED.

Her. "Tis strange enough; night after night, for

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"And it came to pass, that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," &c." There were pants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." — Genesis, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4.

[Pray, was Manfred's speech to the Sun still retained in Act third I hope so: it was one of the best in the thing, and better than the Coliseum."- Byron Letters, 1817.]

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These walls

Oh! I have seen

Come, be friendly;

Must change their chieftain first.
Some strange things in them, Herman. 3
Her.
Relate me some to while away our watch:
I've heard thee darkly speak of an event
Which happen'd hereabouts, by this same tower.
Manuel. That was a night indeed! I do remember
"T was twilight, as it may be now, and such
Another evening;-yon red cloud, which rests
On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then, -
So like that it might be the same; the wind
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows
Began to glitter with the climbing moon;
Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,-
How occupied, we knew not, but with him
The sole companion of his wanderings
And watchings-her, whom of all earthly things
That lived, the only thing he seem'd to love,—
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do,
The Lady Astarte, his 4

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Vassal. Hark! No-all is silent-not a breath the flame Which shot forth such a blaze is also gone : What may this mean? Let's enter! Faith, not I,

Peasant.

Not that, if one, or two, or more, will join,
I then will stay behind; but, for my part,
I do not see precisely to what end.
Vassal. Cease your vain prating.
Manuel (speaking within).

He's dead.

-come.

'Tis all in vain

Her. (within). Not so-even now methought he moved; But it is dark-so bear him gently outSoftly how cold he is! take care of his temples

In winding down the staircase.

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Within a bowshot. Where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
Α which springs through levell'd battlements,
grove
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,

While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. —
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,

As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old, –
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.

'Twas such a night!

"Tis strange that I recall it at this time;
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
Even at the moment when they should array
Themselves in pensive order.

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I linger yet with Nature, for the Night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn'd the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, -upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall, 2
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood

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And stedfastly;

Not I;

What dost mean?

Look there!

Nothing.

Look there, I say,

-now tell me what thou seest.

With strange accompaniments and fearful signs-
I shudder at the sight - but must not leave him.
Manfred (speaking faintly and slowly). Old man! 't is
not so difficult to die.

[MANFRED having said this expires. Her. His eyes are fixed and lifeless. He is gone. Manuel. Close them. My old hand quivers. He deWhither? I dread to think — but he is gone!]

parts

[The opening of this scene is, perhaps, the finest passage in the drama; and its solemn, calm, and majestic character throws an air of grandeur over the catastrophe, which was in danger of appearing extravagant, and somewhat too much in the style of the " Devil and Dr. Faustus."- WILSON.]

2 ["Drove at midnight to see the Coliseum by moonlight: but what can I say of the Coliseum? It must be seen; to describe it I should have thought impossible, if I had not read Manfred To see it aright, as the Poet of the North telis us of the fair Melrose, one must see it by the pale moonlight.' The stillness of night, the whispering echoes, the moonlight shadows, and the awful grandeur of the impending ruins, form a scene of romantic sublimity, such as Byron alone could describe as it deserves. His description is the very thing itself."- MATTHEWS's Diary of an Invalid.]

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Spirit.

Old man!

We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order;
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses,

It were in vain: this man is forfeited.
Once more I summon him-Away! away!
Man.

do defy ye, though I feel my soul
Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye;
Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath
To breathe my scorn upon ye-earthly strength
To wrestie, though with spirits; what ye take
Shall be ta'en limb by limb.
Spirit.

Reluctant mortal!

Is this the Magian who would so pervade

[In the first edition, this line was accidentally left out. On discovering the omission, Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Murray You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem, by omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking."] * [In June, 1820, Lord Byron thus writes to Mr. Murray: Enclosed is something which will interest you; to wit, the opinion of the greatest man in Germany - perhaps in Europe- upon one of the great men of your advertiseents (all famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to say of bis ragamuffins) in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian one: keep them all in your archives; for the opinions

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Man.

But thy many crimes

What are they to such as thee?
Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes,
And greater criminals? - Back to thy hell!
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel;
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know:
What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain from thine:
The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts-
Is its own origin of ill and end-

And its own place and time: its innate sense
When stripp'd of this mortality, derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,
But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy,
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not
tempt me;

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey-
But was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter.- Back, ye baffled fiends!
The hand of death is on me-but not yours!

[The Demons disappear. Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are white

And thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to HeavenPray- -albeit but in thought, but die not thus. Man. 'Tis over-my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee wellGive me thy hand.

Abbot. Cold-cold-even to the heartBut yet one prayer-Alas! how fares it with thee? Man. Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die. 1 [MANFRED expires. Abbot. He's gone-his soul hath ta'en his earthless

flight

Whither? I dread to think- but he is gone. ?

of such a man as Goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting and this is more so, as favourable. His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me viva voce and I was naturally much struck with it: but it was the Staubbach and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar."

The following is the extract from Goethe's Kunst und Altherthum (i. e. Art and Antiquity) which the above letter enclosed:

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