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Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-1881

"Count Alarcos; a Tragedy"


[Exeunt omnes.]


SCENE 3

A Chamber.
[Enter ALARCOS and PAGE.]

I:3:1 PAGE.
Will you wait here, my Lord?
I:3:2 ALAR.
I will, sir Page.
[Exit PAGE.]

The Bishop of Ossuna: what would he?
He scents the prosperous ever. Ay! they'll cluster
Round this new hive. But I'll not house them yet.
Marry, I know them all; but me they know,
As mountains might the leaping stream that meets
The ocean as a river. Time and exile
Change our life's course, but is its flow less deep
Because it is more calm? I've seen to-day
Might stir its pools. What if my phantom flung
A shade on their bright path? 'Tis closed to me
Although the goal's a crown. She loved me once;
Now swoons, and now the match is off. She's true.
But I have clipped the heart that once could soar
High as her own! Dreams, dreams! And yet entranced,
Unto the fair phantasma that is fled,
My struggling fancy clings; for there are hours
When memory with her signet stamps the brain
With an undying mint; and these were such,
When high Ambition and enraptured Love,
Twin Genii of my daring destiny,
Bore on my sweeping life with their full wing,
Like an angelic host:
[In the distance enter a lady veiled.


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