No More Learning

In each full year a tender kid be slain,
If Venus' mate, the bowl, be charged amain
With wine, and incense thick the altar stain
Of long ago.

The herds disport upon the grassy ground,
When in thy name December's Nones come round;
Idling on meads the thorpe, with steers unbound,
Its joys doth show.

Amid emboldened lambs the wolf roams free;
The forest sheds its leafage wild for thee;
And thrice the delver stamps his foot in glee
On earth, his foe.


AN ENVOI

Now have I reared memorial to last
More durable than brass, and to o'ertop
The pile of royal pyramids. No waste
Of rain or ravening Boreas hath power
To ruin it, nor lapse of time to come
In the innumerable round of years.
I shall not wholly die; great part of me
Shall 'scape the Funeral Goddess. Evermore
Fresh shall my honours grow, while pontiffs still
Do climb the Capitol with silent maid.
It shall be told where brawls the Aufidus
In fury, and where Daunus poor in streams
Once reigned o'er rural tribes, it shall be told
That Horace rose from lowliness to fame
And first adapted to Italian strains
The AEolian lay. Assume the eminence,
My own Melpomene, which merit won,
And deign to wreath my hair in Delphic bays.




VICTOR HUGO[I]




Hernani


_Persons in the Drama_

HERNANI A MOUNTAINEER
CHARLES V. OF SPAIN A PAGE
DON RICARDO SOLDIERS
DON RUY GOMEZ CONSPIRATORS
DONA SOL RETAINERS

Date of action, 1519.


ACT I

SCENE--KING CHARLES _and some of his noblemen are creeping into the
courtyard of the palace of_ DON RUY GOMEZ DE SILVA _at Saragossa.
It is midnight, and the palace is dark, save for a dim light
coming from a balcony window_.

THE KING: Here will I wait till Dona Sol comes down.
Guard every entrance.
And if Hernani
Attempts to fight you need not kill the man.
Brigand although he is, he shall go free,
If I can win his lady.

DON RICARDO: Shoot the hawk
If you would keep the dove. The mountaineer
Is a most desperate outlaw.

THE KING: Let him live.
If I were not so passionately in love
With Dona Sol I would help Hernani
To rescue her from her old guardian.
To think that Don Ruy Gomez should have kept
So beautiful a girl a prisoner,
And tried to marry her! Had Hernani
Eloped with her before I fell in love
I would have praised his courage.

[_The balcony window opens, and as the noblemen retire_,
DONA SOL _comes down_.

DONA SOL: Hernani!

THE KING (_holding her_): Sweet Dona Sol.

DONA SOL: Oh, where is Hernani?

THE KING: I am the king, King Charles. I worship you,
And I will make you happy.

DONA SOL: Hernani!
Help!