But as thou hast-hence, hence-and do thy best!
That back of thine may bear its burden; 't is
More high, if not so broad as that of others.

The nipple next day sore and udder dry.‡
Call not thy brothers brethren! Call me not
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens at times hatch vipers, by
Sitting upon strange eggs, Out, urchin, out!
[Exit Bertha.
Arn. (solus). Oh, mother!—She is gone, and I
must do

Her bidding-wearily but willingly

I would fulfill it, could I only hope

A kind word in return. What shall I do ? [Arnold begins to cut wood: in doing this he wounds one of his hands.

My labor for the day is over now.

Sustain that which you lay upon it, mother?

I love, or, at the least, I loved you nothing
Save you, in nature, can love aught like me.
You nursed me-do not kill me!
Bert.
Yes-I nursed thee,
Because thou wert my first-born, and I knew not
If there would be another unlike thee,
That monstrous sport of nature. But get hence,
And gather wood!

Arn.
I will but when I bring it,
Speak to me kindly. Though my brothers are
So beautiful and lusty, and as free

As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me;
Our milk has been the same.
Bert.
As is the hedgehog's,
Which sucks at midnight from the wholesome dam
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid finds

For double curses will be my meed now
At home-What home? I have no home, no kin,
No kind-not made like other creatures, or

To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed too

Like them? Oh that each drop which falls to earth Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me!

Or that the devil, to whom they liken me,
Would aid his likeness! If I must partake
His form, why not his power? Is it because
I have not his will too? For one kind word
From her who bore me would still reconcile me
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me wash
The wound.

[Arnold goes to a spring, and stoops to wash
his hand: he starts back.

"One of the few pages of Lord Byron's 'Memoranda,' which related to his early days, was where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came over

'a lame brat!' It may be questioned, whether this drama was not indebted for its origin to this single recollection."

This is now generally believed to be a vulgar error: the smallness of the animal's mouth rendering it incapable of the mischief laid to its charge.

[He pauses.

And shall I live on,
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
Unto what brought me into life! Thou blood,
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me
Try if thou wilt not in a fuller stream
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
On earth, to which I will restore at once
This hateful compound of her atoms, and
Resolve back to her elements, and take
The shape of any reptile save myself,
And make a world for myriads of new worms!
This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
This wither'd slip of nature's nightshade-my
Vile form-from the creation, as it hath
The green bough from the forest.

[Arnold places the knife in the ground, with
the point upwards.

Now 't is set,

And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warm'd me, but
In vain. The birds-how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!
[As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife, his
eye is suddenly caught by the fountain, which
seems in motion.

The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane
And rocking power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more ?-

[A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing upon it; it is dispelled, and a tall black man comes towards him. What would you? As man is both, why not Say both in one?

Arn. Spirit or man? Stran.

Speak!

Arn. You may be devil. Stran. So many men are that Which is so call'd or thought, that you may add me To which you please, without much wrong to either. But come: you wish to kill yourself;-pursue Your purpose.

Your form is man's, and yet

Arn.

You have interrupted me.

Stran. What is that resolution which can e'er Be interrupted? If I be the devil You deem, a single moment would have made you Mine, and forever, by your suicide; And yet my coming saves you.

Arn.

I said not

To taunt me with my born deformity?

Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo with this Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary With thy sublime of humps, the animals Would revel in the compliment. And yet Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty

In action and endurance than thyself,

And all the fierce and fair of the same kind
With thee. Thy form is natural: 't was only
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow

The gifts which are of others upon man.

Arn. Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,

When he spurs high the dust, beholding his
Near enemy; or let me have the long
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
The helmless dromedary!—and I'll bear
Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.
Stran. I will.

Arn. (with surprise). Thou canst?
Stran.

Perhaps. Would you aught else? Arn. Thou mockest me.

Stran. Not I. Why should I mock What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks. To talk to thee in human language (for Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar, Or wolf, or lion, leaving paltry game To petty burghers, who leave once a year Their walls, to fill their household caldrons with Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee,— Now I can mock the mightiest.

Arn.

Thy time on me: I seek thee not. Stran.

Then waste not

Your thoughts

Are not far from me. Do not send me back:
I am not so easily recall'd to do
Good service.
Arn.
Stran.

What wilt thou do for me?

Change Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks

We will talk of that hereafter.

But I'll be moderate with you, for I see

Great things within you. You shall have no bond But your own will, no contract save your deeds. Are you content?

Arn.

I take thee at thy word.

Stran. Now then!

[The Stranger approaches the fountain, and turns to Arnold.

A little of your blood.

Arn. For what? Stran. To mingle with the magic of the waters, And make the charm effective.

Arn. (holding out his wounded arm). Take it all.

Stran. Not now. A few drops will suffice for this.

[The Stranger takes some of Arnold's blood in
his hand, and casts it into the fountain.
Shadows of beauty!
Shadows of power!
Rise to your duty-
This is the hour!

Walk lovely and pliant

From the depth of this fountain,

As the cloud-shapen giant

Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.*

Come as ye were,

That our eyes may behold

The model in air

Of the form I will mould,

Bright as the Iris

When ether is spann'd ;

Such his desire is, [Pointing to Arnold.
Such my command!

Demons heroic

Demons who wore

The form of the stoic

Or sophist of yore

Or the shape of each victor,
From Macedon's boy

To each high Roman's picture
Who breathed to destroy-
Shadows of beauty!
Shadows of power!
Up to your duty-

This is the hour!

[Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the Stranger and Arnold.

Arn. What do I see? Stran. The black-eyed Roman, with The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er Beheld a conqueror, or look'd along

The land he made not Rome's, while Rome be

came

His, and all theirs who heir'd his very name.
Arn. The phantom 's bald; my quest is beauty.
Could I

Inherit but his fame with his defects!

Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs.

Be air, thou hemlock-drinker! [The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises. Arn. What 's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard

And manly aspect look like Hercules,
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.
Stran.

The ancient world for love.
Arn.

It was the man who lost

Since so far

You see his aspect-choose it, or reject.
I can but promise you his form: his fame
Must be long sought and fought for.
Arn.

But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass;
His aspect may be fair, but suits me not.
Stran. Then you are far more difficult to please
Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus' mother,
Or Cleopatra at sixteen-an age

When love is not less in the eye than heart.
But be it so! Shadow, pass on!

[The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears.
Arn.
And can it
Be, that the man who shook the earth is gone,
And left no footstep?
Stran.
There you err. His substance
Left graves enough, and woes enough, and fame
More than enough to track his memory;
But for his shadow, 't is no more than yours,
Except a little longer and less crook'd
I' the sun. Behold another!

Arn.

[A second phantom passes. Who is he?

*This is a well-known German superstition-a gigantic shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken.-The Brocken is the name of the loftiest of the Hartz mountains, a picturesque range which lies in the kingdom of Hanover. From the earliest periods of authentic history, the Brocken has been the seat of the marvellous.

"The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon,

Stran.

Thy Cleopatra's waiting.

Hence, triumvir !

[The shade of Antony disappears: another rises. Arn. Who is this? Who truly looketh like a demi-god, Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stat

another rises.

I'll fit you still,

Fear not, my hunchback: if the shadows of
That which existed please not your nice taste,
I'll animate the ideal marble, till

Your soul be reconciled to her new garment.
Arn. Content! I will fix here.
Stran.
I must commend
Your choice. The godlike son of the sea-goddess,
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his locks
As beautiful and clear as the amber waves
Of rich Pactolus, roll'd o'er sands of gold,
Soften'd by intervening crystal, and
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,

All vow'd to Sperchius as they were-behold them!
And him-as he stood by Polixena,

With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece look'd her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.

Stran.

I gaze upon him

Arn. As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon Envelop mine. You have done well. The greatest Deformity should only barter with The extremest beauty, if the proverb 's true Of mortals, that extremes meet. Arn.

I am impatient.

Stran.

Come! Be quick!

As a youthful beauty Before her glass. You both see what is not, But dream it is what must be.

I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of
Philistine stature would have gladly pared
His own Goliath down to a slight David;
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show
Rather than a hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
If such be thy desire; and yet, by being
A little less removed from present men
In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt
A new-found mammoth: and their cursed engines,
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
Through our friend's armor there, with greater ease
Than the adulterer's arrow through his heel,
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize
In Styx.

Arn. Then let it be as thou deem'st best. Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou seest,

And strong as what it was, and-
Arn.

I ask not

For valor, since deformity is daring.
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal-
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free to both, to compensate
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune,
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar, win them.*
Stran. Well spoken! and thou doubtless wilt
remain

Form'd as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
This daring soul, which could achieve no less
Without it.

Arn. Had no power presented me
The possibility of change, I would

Have done the best which spirit may to make
Its way with all deformity's dull, deadly,
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders-
An hateful and unsightly molehill, to
The eyes of happier men. I would have look'd
On beauty in that sex which is the type
Of all we know or dream of beautiful
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh-
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
Though to a heart all love, what could not love me
In turn, because of this vile crooked clog,
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
It all, had not my mother spurn'd me from her.
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort

Of shape;-my dam beheld my shape was hopeless.
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere
I knew the passionate part of life, I had
Been a clod of the valley,-happier nothing
Than what I am. But even thus, the lowest,
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind, what courage
And perseverance could have done, perchance
Had made me something-as it has made heroes
Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
And he who is so is the master of
Whatever dreads to die.

Surely, he Who can command all forms will choose the highest, Something superior even to that which was Pelides now before us. Perhaps his Who slew him, that of Paris: or-still higherThe poet's god, clothed in such limbs as are Themselves a poetry. Less will content me;

Stran.

uneasy mind in an uneasy body; disease or deformity,' he adds, 'have been the attendants of many of our best: Collins mad-Chatterton, I think, mad-Cowper mad-Pope crooked