Is all gone by. You have cast off the chains
That fettered your nobility of mind, -

Delivered heart and head!

Let us to Palestine;

This is a paltry field for enterprise.

Mar. Ay, what shall we encounter next? This issue,

'Twas nothing more than darkness deepening darkness,

And weakness crowned with the impotence of

death!

Your pupil is, you see, an apt proficient.

Start not!

[Ironically.

Here is another face hard by ;

Come, let us take a peep at both together,

And, with a voice at which the dead will quake, Resound the praise of your morality

Of this too much.

[Drawing OSWALD towards the Cottage, stops short at the door.

Men are there, millions, Oswald, Who with bare hands would have plucked out thy

heart

And flung it to the dogs: but I am raised
Above, or sunk below, all further sense
Of provocation. Leave me, with the weight.
Of that old man's forgiveness on thy heart,
Pressing as heavily as it doth on mine.
Coward I have been; know, there lies not now
Within the compass of a mortal thought

A deed that I would shrink from;-bul to en

dure,

That is my destiny. May it be thine:
Thy office, thy ambition, be henceforth
To feed remorse, to welcome every sting

Of penitential anguish, yea, with tears.

When seas and continents shall lie between us

The wider space

the better we may find In such a course fit links of sympathy, An incommunicable rivalship

Maintained, for peaceful ends beyond our view.

[Confused voices.

---

Several of the Band enter,

rush upon OSWALD, and seize him.

One of them. I would have dogged him to the

Osw. Ha! is it so! That vagrant Hag!

this comes

Of having left a thing like her alive!

Several voices. Despatch him!

Osw.

[Aside.

If I pass beneath a rock

And shout, and, with the echo of my voice,

Bring down a heap of rubbish, and it crush me,

I die without dishonor. Famished, starved,

A Fool and Coward blended to my wish! "Smiles scornfully and exultingly at MARMADUKE. Wal. 'Tis done! (stabs him.)

Another of the band. The ruthless traitor!

Mar.

A rash deed!

With that reproof I do resign a station
Of which I have been proud.

Wil. (approaching MARMADUKE.) O my poor

Master!

Mar. Discerning Monitor, my faithful Wilfred, Why art thou here?

[Turning to WALLACE. Wallace, upon these Borders,

Many there be whose eyes will not want cause
To weep that I am gone. Brothers in arms!
Raise on that dreary Waste a monument
That may record my story: nor let words
Few must they be, and delicate in their touch
As light itself be there withheld from her
Who, through most wicked arts, was made an or-
phan

By one who would have died a thousand times,
To shield her from a moment's harm. To you,
Wallace and Wilfred, I commend the lady,
By lowly nature reared, as if to make her
In all things worthier of that noble birth,
Whose long suspended rights are now on the eve
Of restoration with your tenderest care

Watch over her, I pray

sustain her

Captain.

Several of the Band (eagerly).

Mar. No more of that; in silence hear my doom;

A hermitage has furnished fit relief

To some offenders; other penitents,

Less patient in their wretchedness, have fallen,
Like the old Roman, on their own sword's point.
They had their choice: a wanderer must I go,
The spectre of that innocent man my guide.
No human ear shall ever hear me speak;

No human dwelling ever give me food,
Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild,
In search of nothing, that this earth can give,
But expiation, will I wander on —

A man by pain and thought compelled to live,
Yet loathing life-till anger is appeased
In Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die.

1796-8

POEMS REFERRING TO THE PERIOD

OF CHILDHOOD.

I.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky :

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

II.

TO A BUTTERFLY.

STAY near me; do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

1804