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Read Ebook: André by Dunlap William Moses Montrose Jonas Editor
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Ebook has 277 lines and 10274 words, and 6 pages
BLAND.
Still mayest thou say it, for thy heart's the same.
ANDR?.
Still is my heart the same: still may I say it: But now my deeds will rise against my words; And should I dare to talk of honest truth, Frank undissembling probity and faith, Memory would crimson o'er my burning cheek, And actions retrospected choke the tale. Still is my heart the same. But there has past A day, an hour--which ne'er can be recall'd! Unhappy man! tho' all thy life pass pure; Mark'd by benevolence thy every deed; The out-spread map, which shews the way thou'st trod, Without one devious track, or doubtful line; It all avails thee nought, if in one hour, One hapless hour, thy feet are led astray;-- Thy happy deeds, all blotted from remembrance; Cancel'd the record of thy former good. Is it not hard, my friend? Is 't not unjust?
BLAND.
Not every record cancel'd--Oh, there are hearts, Where Virtue's image, when 't is once engrav'd, Can never know erasure.
ANDR?.
Generous Bland! .
Thou shalt not die!
ANDR?.
Let me, Oh! let me die a soldier's death, While friendly clouds of smoke shroud from all eyes My last convulsive pangs, and I'm content.
BLAND .
Thou shalt not die! Curse on the laws of war!-- If worth like thine must thus be sacrificed, To policy so cruel and unjust, I will forswear my country and her service: I'll hie me to the Briton, and with fire, And sword, and every instrument of death Or devastation, join in the work of war! What, shall worth weigh for nought? I will avenge thee!
ANDR?.
Hold, hold, my friend; thy country's woes are full. What! wouldst thou make me cause another traitor? No more of this; and, if I die, believe me, Thy country for my death incurs no blame. Restrain thy ardour--but ceaselessly intreat, That Andr? may at least die as he lived, A soldier.
BLAND.
M'DONALD .
Three thousand miles the Atlantic wave rolls on, Which bathed Columbia's shores, ere, on the strand Of Europe, or of Afric, their continents, Or sea-girt isles, it chafes.--
SEWARD.
Oh! would to heaven That in mid-way between these sever'd worlds, Rose barriers, all impassable to man, Cutting off intercourse, till either side Had lost all memory of the other!
M'DONALD.
What spur now goads thy warm imagination?
SEWARD.
M'DONALD.
Hold! Shroud thy raven imagination! Torture not me with images so curst!
SEWARD.
Soon shall our foes, inglorious, fly these shores. Peace shall again return. Then Europe's ports Shall pour a herd upon us, far more fell Than those, her mercenary sons, who, now, Threaten our sore chastisement.
M'DONALD.
SEWARD.
Mere theoretic dreaming!
M'DONALD.
Blest wisdom Seems, from out the chaos of the social world, Where good and ill, in strange commixture, float, To rise, by strong necessity, impell'd; Starting, like Love divine, from womb of Night, Illuming all, to order all reducing; And shewing, by its bright and noontide blaze, That happiness alone proceeds from justice.
SEWARD.
Dreams, dreams! Man can know nought but ill on earth.
M'DONALD.
I'll to my bed, for I have watch'd all night; And may my sleep give pleasing repetition Of these my waking dreams! Virtue's incentives. .
Perhaps!
I don't like perhaps's.
No, nor I neither; nor "may be so's."
MRS. BLAND.
We make not certainties, my pretty loves; I do not like "perhaps's" more than you do.
MRS. BLAND.
Well said, Sir Pertness.
But I am sure, Mama, you said, that, to-day, Papa would have his liberty.
MRS. BLAND.
So, your dear father, by his letters, told me.
MRS. BLAND.
Dear boy!
SERVANT.
An express, madam, from New-York to Headquarters, in passing, delivered this.
Papa's coming home to-day, John.
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