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 years, He hath pursued long vigils in this tower,

Without a witness. I have been within it,

So have we all been oft-times; but from it,

Or its contents, it were impossible
To draw conclusions absolute, of aught

His studies tend to. To be sure, there is

One chamber where none enter; I would give
The fee of what I have to come these three years,

To pore upon its mysteries.

MANUEL.

"Twere dangerous;

Content thyself with what thou knowest already.

HER. Ah! Manuel! thou art elderly and wise, And couldst say much; thou hast dwelt within the castleHow many years is't?

MANUEL. Ere Count Manfred's birth,

I served his father, whom he nought resembles. HER. There be more sons in like predicament. But wherein do they differ?

MANUEL.

I speak not

Of features or of form, but mind and habits:

Count Sigismund was proud,-but gay and free,—

A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not

With books and solitude, nor made the night
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time,

Merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside

From men and their delights.

HER. Beshrew the hour,

But those were jocund times! I would that such Would visit the old walls again; they look

As if they had forgotten them.

MANUEL.

Must change their chieftain first.

These walls

Oh! I have seen

Some strange things in them, Herman.

HER. Come, be friendly;

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.

F 2

MANUEL. That was a night indeed; I do remember 'Twas 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

Hush! who comes here?

Enter the ABBOT.

ABBOT. Where is your master?

HER. Yonder, in the tower.

ABBOT. I must speak with him.

MANUEL.

'Tis impossible;

He is most private, and must not be thus

Intruded on.

Аввот. Upon myself I take

The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be―

Knock, and apprize the Count of my approach.

MAN. The stars are forth, the moon above the tops

Of the snow-shining mountains.-Beautiful!

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 Coloseum's wall,
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 watchdog bayed 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
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow shot-where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;-

But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,