Who by repentance

Has escaped the dreadful sentence,
Shines bright below me as I look.
It is the end!

With closed Book

To God do I ascend.

Lo! over the mountain steeps
A dark, gigantic shadow sweeps
Beneath my feet;

A blackness inwardly brightening
With sullen heat,

As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning.
And a cry of lamentation,

Repeated and again repeated,
Deep and loud

As the reverberation

Of cloud answering unto cloud,

Swells and rolls away in the distance,
As if the sheeted

Lightning retreated,

Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance.

It is Lucifer,

The son of mystery;

And since God suffers him to be,

He, too, is God's minister,

And labours for some good

By us not understood!

BELTRAN CRUZADO

BARTOLOMÉ ROMAN

THE PADRE CURA OF GUADARRAMA.

PEDRO CRESPO

Students of Alcalá.

Gentlemen of Madrid.

Count of the Gipsies.
A young Gipsy.

PANCHO

FRANCISCO

CHISPA

BALTASAR .

PRECIOSA

ANGELICA

MARTINA

DOLORES

Gipsies, Musicians, &c.

АСТ І.

SCENE I. The COUNT OF LARA's Chambers.

Night. The COUNT

I had engagements elsewhere.

in his dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with DON CARLOS.
Lara. You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos;
How happened it?
Don C.
Pray who was there?
Lara.
The house was crowded; and the busy fans
Among the gaily-dressed and perfumed ladies
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.
There was the Countess of Medina Celi;
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,

Why, all the town and court.

Fran.

A golden ring, that had a ruby in it
Lara. Was there another like it?
Fran.

I saw him buy

One so like it

It is well.

I could not choose between them.
Lara.
To-morrow morning bring that ring to me.
Do not forget. Now light me to my bed.

[Exeunt,

SCENE II. A Street in Madrid. Enter CHISPA, followed by Musicians, with a bagpipe, guitars, and other instruments.

Chispa. Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague on all lovers who ramble about at night, drinking the elements, instead of sleeping quietly in their beds. Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to his monastery. Now, here's my master, Victorian, yesterday a cow-keeper, and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student, and to-day a lover; and I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot sings so must the sacristan respond. God grant he may soon be married, for then shall all this serenading cease. Ay, marry! marry! marry! Mother, what does marry mean? It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my daughter! And, of a truth, there is something more in matrimony than the wedding-ring. (To the musicians.) And now, gentlemen, Pax vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages. Pray, walk this way; and don't hang down your heads. It is no disgrace to have an old father and a ragged shirt. Now, look you, you are gentlemen who lead the life of crickets; you enjoy hunger by day and noise by night. Yet, I beseech you, for this once be not loud, but pathetic; for it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the man in the Moon. Your object is not to arouse and terrify, but to soothe and bring lulling dreams. Therefore, each shall not play upon his instrument as if it were the only one in the universe, but gently, and with a certain modesty, according with the others. Pray, how may I call thy name, friend? First Mus. Gerónimo Gil, at your service.

Chispa. Every tub smells of the wine that is in it. Pray, Gerónimo, is not Saturday an unpleasant day with thee?

First Mus. Why so?

Chispa. Because I have heard it said that Saturday is an unpleasant day with those who have but one shirt. Moreover, I have seen thee at the tavern, and if thou canst run as fast as thou canst drink, I should like to hunt hares with thee. What instrument is that? First Mus. An Aragonese bagpipe.

Chispa. Pray, art thou related to the bagpiper of Bujalance, who asked a maravedi for playing, and ten for leaving off?

First Mus. No, your honour.

Chispa. I am glad of it. What other instruments have we?

Second and Third Mus. We play the bandurria.

Chispa. A pleasing instrument. And thou?