ACT III.

SCENEI.

A Hall in the Castle of Manfred.

MANFRED and HERMAN.

MAN. What is the hour?

HER. It wants but one till sunset,

And promises a lovely twilight,

MAN.

Say,

Are all things so disposed of in the tower,

Inexplicable stillness! which till now

Did not belong to what I knew of life.

If that I did not know philosophy

To be of all our vanities the motliest,

The merest word that ever fool'd the ear

From out the schoolman's jargon, I should deem
The golden secret, the sought "Kalon," found,
And seated in my soul. It will not last,
But it is well to have known it, though but once:
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense,
And I within my tablets would note down,
That there is such a feeling. Who is there?

Re-enter HERMAN.

My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves
To greet your presence.

Enter the ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE.

Аввот.. Pease be with Count Manfred!
MAN. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these

walls!

Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those

Who dwell within them.

Аввот.

Would it were so, Count!

But I would fain confer with thee alone.

MAN. Herman, retire. What would my reverend

guest?

Аввот. Thus, without prelude: - Age and zeal, my office,

And good intent, must plead my privilege;

Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood,

May also be my herald. Rumours strange,

And of unholy nature, are abroad,

And busy with thy name; a noble name
For centuries; may he who bears it now,

Transmit it unimpair'd!

MAN.

Proceed, - I'listen.

Аввот. 'Tis said thou holdest converse with

the things

Which are forbidden to the search of man;
That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,
The many evil and unheavenly spirits,
Which walk the valley of the shade of death,
Thou communest. I know that with mankind,
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude
Is as an anchorite's, were it but holy.'

MAN. And what are they who do avouch these things?

Аввот. Му pious brethren - the scared pea

santry

Even thy own vassals
With most unquiet eyes.
MAN. Take it!

who do look on thee Thy life's in peril.

АввоT. I come to save, and not destroy I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time

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For penitence and pity: reconcile thee
With the true church, and through the church

to heaven!

MAN. I hear thee. This is my reply; whate'er I may have been, or arm, doth rest between Heaven and myself. - I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator. Have I sinn'd Against your ordinances? prove and, punish!

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АввоT. My son! I did not speak of punishment, But penitence and pardon; - with thyself The choice of such remains and for the last, Our institutions and our strong belief Have given me power to smooth the path from sin To higher hope and better thoughts; the first I leave to heaven - "Vengeance is mine alone!" So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness

His servant echoes back the awful word.

nor fast

MAN. Old man! there is no power in holy men," Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence - nor outward look Nor agony nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell, But all in all sufficient to itself

Would make a hell of heaven - can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense

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Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge

Upon itself, there is no future pang

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd

He deals on his own soul.

Аввот.

All this is well;

For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place,
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
Aud the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity. - Say on
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee, shall be pardon'd.

MAN. When Rome's sixth Emperor was near
his last,

The victim of a self-inflicted wound,
To shun the torments of a public death
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have staunch'd
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back and said
Some empire still in his expiring glance,

"It is too late

is this fidelity?"

ABBOT. And what of this?

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