God sent his messenger of faith,

And whispered in the maiden's heart,
"Rise up, and look from where thou art.
And scatter with unselfish hands

Thy freshness on the barren sands
And solitudes of Death."

O beauty of holiness,

Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!
O power of meekness,

Whose very gentleness and weakness
Are like the yielding, but irresistible air!
Upon the pages

Of the sealed volume that I bear,

The deed divine

Is written in characters of gold,
That never shall grow old,
But through all ages

Burn and shine,

With soft effulgence!

O God! it is thy indulgence

That fills the world with the bliss

Of a good deed like this!

The Angel of Evil Deeds, with open book.

Not yet, not yet

Is the red sun wholly set,

But evermore recedes,

While open still I bear

The Book of Evil Deeds,

To let the breathings of the upper air
Visit its pages and erase

The records from its face!
Fainter and fainter as I gaze
In the broad blaze

The glimmering landscape shines,
And below me the black river
Is hidden by wreaths of vapour!
Fainter and fainter the black lines

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!

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.

Her Lindo Don Diego; Doña Sol,
And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.
Don C. What was the play?
Lara.

It was a dull affair;

One of those comedies in which you see,

As Lope says, the history of the world

Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment.
There were three duels fought in the first act,
Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,
Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying,
"O, I am dead!" a lover in a closet,
An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,
A Doña Inez with a black mantilla,
Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,
Who looks intently where he knows she is not!
Don C. Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night?
Lara. And never better. Every footstep fell
As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.

I think the girl extremely beautiful.

Don C. Almost beyond the privilege of woman!
I saw her in the Prado yesterday.

Her step was royal,-queen-like, and her face
As beautiful as a saint's in Paradise.

Lara. May not a saint fall from her Paradise,
And be no more a saint?

Don C.

Why do you ask?

Lara. Because I have heard it said this angel fell,
And, though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner; like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus!

Don C. You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong! She is as virtuous as she is fair.

Lara. How credulous you are! Why look you, friend, There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid,

In this whole city! And would you persuade me
That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself,
Nightly, half-naked, on the stage, for money,
And with voluptuous motions fires the blood
Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held

A model for her virtue?

Don C.

She is a Gipsy girl.

Lara.

The easier.

Don C.

You forget

And therefore won

Nay, not to be won at all!

The only virtue that a Gipsy prizes

Is chastity. That is her only virtue.

Dearer than life she holds it. I remember
A Gipsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,
Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;
And yet this woman was above all bribes.
And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,
The wild and wizard beauty of her race,
Offered her gold to be what she made others,
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,
And smote him in the face!

Lara.

And does that prove

That Preciosa is above suspicion?

Don C. It proves a nobleman may be repulsed
When he thinks conquest easy. I believe
That woman, in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!
Lara. Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold.
Don C. (rising.) I do not think so.

Lara.
I am sure of it.
But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer,
And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.

Don C. 'Tis late. I must begone, for if I stay
You will not be persuaded.

Lara.

Yes; persuade me.

Don C. No one so deaf as he who will not hear!
Lara. No one so blind as he who will not see!

Don C. And so good night. I wish you pleasant dreams, And greater faith in woman.

Lara.

Greater faith!

I have the greatest faith; for I believe

Victorian is her lover. I believe

That I shall be to-morrow; and thereafter

Another, and another, and another,

Chasing each other through her zodiac,

As Taurus chases Aries.

Enter FRANCISCO with a casket.

What speed with Preciosa?

Fran.

Well, Francisco,

None, my lord.

She sends your jewels back, and bids me tell you
She is not to be purchased by your gold.

Lara. Then I will try some other way to win her.
Pray, dost thou know Victorian?

Fran.

I saw him at the jeweller's to-day.
Lara. What was he doing there?

Yes, my lord;

[Exit.