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النشر الإلكتروني

But your true father has returned to Spain

Laden with wealth. You are no more a Gypsy.

Vict. Strange as a Moorish tale! Chispa. And we have all Been drinking at the tavern to your health,

As wells drink in November, when it rains.

Vict. Where is the gentleman ?
Chispa.

As the old song says,

His body is in Segovia,
His soul is in Madrid.

Prec. Is this a dream? O, if it be a dream,

Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!

Repeat thy story! Say I'm not deceived!

Say that I do not dream! I am awake; This is the Gypsy camp; this is Victorian,

And this his friend, Hypolito! Speak! speak!

Let me not wake and find it all a dream!

Vict. It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream,

A blissful certainty, a vision bright Of that rare happiness, which even on earth

Heaven gives to those it loves. Now art thou rich,

As thou wast ever beautiful and good; And I am now the beggar.

Prec. (giving him her hand). I have still

A hand to give.

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Chispa (aside). And I have two to (Disappears down the pass.

take.

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Enter a

Monk. A shepherd appears on the rocks above.)

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Nothing more.

valley?

Your friend, Don Carlos, is now at the

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Shep. San Ildefonso.

Monk. A long way to breakfast.
Shep. Ay, marry.

Monk. Are there robbers in these mountains?

Shep. Yes, and worse than that.

Monk. What? Shep. Wolves.

Monk. Santa Maria! Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be well rewarded.

Shep. What wilt thou give me? Monk. An Agnus Dei and my benediction.

(They disappear. A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow. He goes down the pass singing.)

SONG.

Worn with speed is my good steed,
And I march me hurried, worried;
Onward, caballito mio,

With the white star in thy forehead!
Onward, for here comes the Ronda,
And I hear their rifles crack!
Ay, jaléo! Ay, ay, jaléo !

Ay, jaléo! They cross our track.

(Song dies away. Enter PRECIOSA, on horseback, attended by VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, and CHISPA, on foot, and armed.)

Vict. This is the highest point. Here let us rest.

See, Preciosa, see how all about us Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty

mountains

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Prec.

O yes! I see it now, Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,

So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,

Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged

Against all stress of accident, as in The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide

Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains,

And there were wrecked, and perished in the sea! (She weeps.)

Vict. O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear unmoved

Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate! But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee

Melts thee to tears! O, let thy weary heart

Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,

Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be com

forted

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And saying," Hark! she comes!" O father father!

(They descend the pass. CHISPA remains behind.)

Chispa. I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may happen? Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite! [Exit.

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THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

IN the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray, Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there, Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang

the swallows wild and high; And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,

With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain; They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

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And

And

again the whiskered Spaniard all

the land with terror smote;

again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er la-
goon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! there is
victory in the land!"

Then the sound of drums aroused me.
The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned

back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware, Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.

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Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,

When the death-angel touches those swift keys!

Through the closed blinds the golden sun What loud lament and dismal Miserere

Poured in a dusty beam,

Like the celestial ladder seen

By Jacob in his dream.

And ever and anon, the wind,

Sweet-scented with the hay,

Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves

That on the window lay.

Long was the good man's sermon,

Yet it seemed not so to me;
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful,
And still I thought of thee.

Will mingle with their awful sympho

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