Act the Second: Scene XIX

POLONIA. Oh, stay,Wandering from the path astray,Hapless crowd, rash, indiscreet,Turn away your erring feet,For misfortune lies that way.

Here from myself with hurried footsteps flying,I dared to treat this wilderness profound,Beneath the mountain whose proud top defyingThe pure bright sunbeam is with huge rocks crowned,Hoping that here, as in its dark grave lying,Never my sin could on the earth be found,And I myself might find a port of peaceWhere all the tempests of the world might cease.

No polar star had hostile fate decreed me,As on my perilous path I dared to stray,So great its pride, no hand presumed to lead me,And guide my silent footstep on its way.Not yet the aspect of the place has freed meFrom the dread terror, anguish and dismay,Which were awakened by this mountain's gloom,And all the hidden wonders of its womb.

See ye not here this rock some power secureth,That grasps with awful toil the hill-side brown,And with the very anguish it endurethAge after age seems slowly coming down?Suspended there with effort, it obscurethA mighty cave beneath, which it doth crown;--An open mouth the horrid cavern shapes,Wherewith the melancholy mountain gapes.

This, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded,Between the lips of rocks at either side,Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded,Whose tangled hair is scantily suppliedBy the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded,A gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried,A space, a void, the gladsome day's affright,The fatal refuge of the frozen night.

I wished to enter there, to make my dwellingWithin the cave; but here my accents fail,My troubled voice, against my will rebelling.Doth interrupt so terrible a tale.--What novel horror, all the past excelling,Must I relate to you, with cheeks all pale,Without cold terror on my bosom seizing,And even my voice, my breath, my pulses freezing?

I scarcely had o'ercome my hesitation,And gone within the cavern's vault profound,When I heard wails of hopeless lamentation,Despairing shrieks that shook the walls around,Curses, and blasphemy, and desperation,Dark crimes avowed that would even hell astound,Which heaven, I think, in order not to hear,Had hid within this prison dark and drear.

Let him come here who doubts what I am telling,Let him here bravely enter who denies,Soon shall he hear the sounds of dreadful yelling,Soon shall the horrors gleam before his eyes.For me, my voice is hushed, my bosom swelling,Pants now with terror, now with strange surprise.Nor is it right that human tongue should dareHigh heaven's mysterious secrets to lay bare.

PATRICK. This cave, O king, which here you see, concealethThe mysteries of life as well as death:Not, I should say, for him whose bosom feelethNo true repentance, or no real faith;But he who boldly enters, who revealethHis sins, confessing them with penitent breath,Shall see them all forgiven, his conscience clear,And have alive his Purgatory here.

KING. And dost thou think, O Patrick, that I oweMy blood so little, as to yield to dread,And trembling fear like a weak woman show?Say, who shall be the first this cave to tread?What silent! Philip?

PHILIP. Sire, I dare not go.

KING. Then, Captain, thou?

CAPTAIN. Enough to strike me deadIs even the thought.

KING. Leogaire, thou'lt surely dare?

LEOGAIRE. The heavens, my lord, themselves exclaim forbear!

KING. O cowards, lost to every sense of shame,Unfit to gird the warrior's sword aroundYour shrinking loins! Men are ye but in name.Well, I myself shall be the first to soundThe depths of this enchantment, and proclaimUnto this Christian that my heart unawedNor dreads his incantations nor his God!much noise, flames rise from below, and many voices are heard.

POLONIA. How terrible!

LEOGAIRE. How awful!

PHILIP. What a wonder!

CAPTAIN. The earth is breathing out its central fire.

LEOGAIRE. The axes of the sky are burst asunder.

POLONIA. The heavens are loosening their collected ire.

LESBIA. The earth doth quake, and peals the sullen thunder.

PATRICK. O, mighty Lord, who will not now admireThy wondrous works?

PHILIP. Oh! who that's not insaneWill enter Patrick's Purgatory again?