LITMIR.BIZ

         The queen – does she know of your passion?

                               Could I

         Reveal it to her? She is Philip's wife —

         She is the queen, and this is Spanish ground,

         Watched by a jealous father, hemmed around

         By ceremonial forms, how, how could I

         Approach her unobserved? 'Tis now eight months,

         Eight maddening months, since the king summoned me

         Home from my studies, since I have been doomed

         To look on her, adore her day by day,

         And all the while be silent as the grave!

         Eight maddening months, Roderigo; think of this!

         This fire has seethed and raged within my breast!

         A thousand, thousand times, the dread confession

         Has mounted to my lips, yet evermore

         Shrunk, like a craven, back upon my heart.

         O Roderigo! for a few brief moments

         Alone with her!

                  Ah! and your father, prince!

         Unhappy me! Remind me not of him.

         Tell me of all the torturing pangs of conscience,

         But speak not, I implore you, of my father!

         Then do you hate your father?

                         No, oh, no!

         I do not hate my father; but the fear

         That guilty creatures feel, – a shuddering dread, —

         Comes o'er me ever at that terrible name.

         Am I to blame, if slavish nurture crushed

         Love's tender germ within my youthful heart?

         Six years I'd numbered, ere the fearful man,

         They told me was my father, met mine eyes.

         One morning 'twas, when with a stroke I saw him

         Sign four death-warrants. After that I ne'er

         Beheld him, save when, for some childish fault,

         I was brought out for chastisement. O God!

         I feel my heart grow bitter at the thought.

         Let us away! away!

                   Nay, Carlos, nay,

         You must, you shall give all your sorrow vent,

         Let it have words! 'twill ease your o'erfraught heart.

         Oft have I struggled with myself, and oft

         At midnight, when my guards were sunk in sleep,

         With floods of burning tears I've sunk before

         The image of the ever-blessed Virgin,

         And craved a filial heart, but all in vain.

         I rose with prayer unheard. O Roderigo!

         Unfold this wondrous mystery of heaven,

         Why of a thousand fathers only this

         Should fall to me – and why to him this son,

         Of many thousand better? Nature could not

         In her wide orb have found two opposites

         More diverse in their elements. How could

         She bind the two extremes of human kind —

         Myself and him – in one so holy bond?

         O dreadful fate! Why was it so decreed?

         Why should two men, in all things else apart,

         Concur so fearfully in one desire?

         Roderigo, here thou seest two hostile stars,

         That in the lapse of ages, only once,

         As they sweep onwards in their orbed course,

         Touch with a crash that shakes them to the centre,

         Then rush apart forever and forever.

         I feel a dire foreboding.

                       So do I.

         Like hell's grim furies, dreams of dreadful shape

         Pursue me still. My better genius strives

         With the fell projects of a dark despair.

         My wildered subtle spirit crawls through maze

         On maze of sophistries, until at length

         It gains a yawning precipice's brink.

         O Roderigo! should I e'er in him

         Forget the father – ah! thy deathlike look

         Tells me I'm understood – should I forget

         The father – what were then the king to me?

         One thing, my Carlos, let me beg of you!

         Whate'er may be your plans, do nothing, – nothing, —

         Without your friend's advice. You promise this?

         All, all I promise that thy love can ask!

         I throw myself entirely upon thee!

         The king, I hear, is going to Madrid.

         The time is short. If with the queen you would

         Converse in private, it is only here,

         Here in Aranjuez, it can be done.

         The quiet of the place, the freer manners,

         All favor you.

                 And such, too, was my hope;

         But it, alas! was vain.

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