Excerpt
THE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE RHINE.
A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY, sitting alone, ill and restless. Prince Henry. I cannot sleep! my fervid brainCalls up the vanished Past again,And throws its misty splendors deepInto the pallid realms of sleep!A breath from that far-distant shoreComes freshening ever more and more,And wafts o'er intervening seasSweet odors from the Hesperides!A wind, that through the corridorJust stirs the curtain, and no more,And, touching the aeolian strings,Faints with the burden that it brings!Come back! ye friendships long departed!That like o'erflowing streamlets started,And now are dwindled, one by one,To stony channels in the sun!Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!Come back, with all that light attended,Which seemed to darken and decayWhen ye arose and went away!They come, the shapes of joy and woe,The airy crowds of long-ago,The dreams and fancies known of yore,That have been, and shall be no more.They change the cloisters of the nightInto a garden of delight;They make the dark and dreary hoursOpen and blossom into flowers!I would not sleep! I love to beAgain in their fair company;But ere my lips can bid them stay,They pass and vanish quite away!Alas! our memories may retraceEach circumstance of time and place,Season and scene come back again,And outward things unchanged remain;The rest we cannot reinstate;Ourselves we cannot re-create,Nor set our souls to the same keyOf the remembered harmony!Rest! rest! O, give me rest and peace!The thought of life that ne'er shall ceaseHas something in it like despair,A weight I am too weak to bear!Sweeter to this afflicted breastThe thought of never-ending rest!Sweeter the undisturbed and deepTranquillity of endless sleep!(A flash of lightning, out of which LUCIFER appears, in the garb of a travelling Physician.) Lucifer. All hail Prince Henry! Prince Henry (starting). Who is it speaks?Who and what are you? Lucifer. One who seeksA moment's audience with the Prince. Prince Henry. When came you in? Lucifer. A moment since.I found your study door unlocked,And thought you answered when I knocked. Prince Henry. I did not hear you. Lucifer. You heard the thunder;It was loud enough to waken the dead.And it is not a matter of special wonderThat, when God is walking overhead,You should not have heard my feeble tread. Prince Henry. What may your wish or purpose be? Lucifer. Nothing or everything, as it pleasesYour Highness. You behold in meOnly a traveling Physician;One of the few who have a missionTo cure incurable diseases,Or those that are called so. Prince Henry. Can you bringThe dead to life? Lucifer. Yes; very nearly.And, what is a wiser and better thing,Can keep the living from ever needingSuch an unnatural, strange proceeding,By showing conclusively and clearlyThat death is a stupid blunder merely,And not a necessity of our lives.My being here is accidental;The storm, that against your casement drives,In the little village below waylaid me....