Rapt in dreamy thought the while,With a sphinx-like shadowy smile,Poet Florio sat, but nowSpake in deep-voiced accents slow,More as one who probes his mind,Than for us—"Who seeks, shall find—Widening knowledge surely bringsVaster themes to him who sings.Was veiled Isis more sublimeThan yon frozen fruit of Time,Hanging in the naked sky?Death's domain—for worlds too die.Lo! the heavens like a scrollStand revealed before my soul;And the hieroglyphs are suns—Changeless change the law that runsThrough the flame-inscribed page,World on world and age on age,Balls of ice and orbs of fire,What abides when these expire?Through slow cycles they revolve,Yet at last like clouds dissolve.Jove, Osiris, Brahma pass,Races wither like the grass.Must not mortals be as godsTo embrace such periods?Yet at Nature's heart remainsOne who waxes not nor wanes.And our crowning glory stillIs to have conceived his will."
September 26, 1881.
Weep for the martyr! Strew his bierWith the last roses of the year;Shadow the land with sables; knellThe harsh-tongued, melancholy bell;Beat the dull muffled drum, and flauntThe drooping banner; let the chantOf the deep-throated organ sob—One voice, one sorrow, one heart-throb,From land to land, from sea to sea—The huge world quires his elegy.Tears, love, and honor he shall have,Through ages keeping green his grave.Too late approved, too early lost,His story is the people's boast.Tough-sinewed offspring of the soil,Of peasant lineage, reared to toil,In Europe he had been a thingTo the glebe tethered—here a king!Crowned not for some transcendent gift,Genius of power that may liftA Caesar or a BonaparteUp to the starred goal of his heart;But that he was the epitomeOf all the people aim to be.Were they his dying trust? He wasNo less their model and their glass.In him the daily traits were viewedOf the undistinguished multitude.Brave as the silent myriads are,Crushed by the juggernaut world-car;Strong with the people's strength, yet mild,Simple and tender as a child;Wise with the wisdom of the heart,Able in council, field, and mart;Nor lacking in the lambent gleam,The great soul's final stamp—the beamOf genial fun, the humor saneWherewith the hero sports with pain.His virtues hold within the spanOf his obscurest fellow-man.To live without reproach, to dieWithout a fear—in these words lieHis highest aims, for none too high.No triumph his beyond the reachOf patient courage, kindly speech;And yet so brave the soul outbreathed,The great example he bequeathed,Were all to follow, we should seeA universal chivalry.
His trust, the People! They respondFrom Maine to Florida, beyondThe sea-walled continent's broad scope,Honor his pledge, confirm his hope.Hark! over seas the echo hence,The nations do him reverence.An Empress lays her votive wreathWhere peoples weep with bated breath.The world-clock strikes a fateful hour,Bright with fair portents, big with power,—The first since history's course has run,When kings' and peoples' cause is one;Those mourn a brother—these a son!
O how he loved them! That gray morn,When his wound-wasted form was borneNorth, from the White House to the sea,Lifting his tired lids thankfully,"How good," he murmured in his pain,"To see the people once again!"Oh, how they loved him! They stood there,Thronging the road, the street, the square,With hushed lips locked in silent prayer,Uncovered heads and streaming eyes,Breathless as when a father dies.The records of the ghostly ride,Past town and field at morning-tide.
When life's full stream is wont to gushThrough all its ways with boisterous rush,—The records note that once a houndHad barked, and once was heard the soundOf cart-wheels rumbling on the stones—And once, mid stifled sobs and groans,One man dared audibly lament,And cried, "God bless the president!"Always the waiting crowds to sendA God-speed to his journey's end—The anxious whisper, brow of gloom,As in a sickness-sacred room,Till his ear drank with ecstasyThe rhythmic thunders of the sea.
Tears for the smitten fatherless,The wife's, the mother's life-distress,To whom the million-throated moanFrom throne and hut, may not atoneFor one hushed voice, one empty chair,One presence missing everywhere.But only words of joy and sheer,The people from his grave shall hear.Were they not worthy of his trust,From whose seed sprang the sacred dust?He broke the bars that separateThe humble from the high estate.And heirs of empire round his bedMourn with the "disinherited."
Oh, toil-worn, patient Heart that bleeds,Whose martyrdom even his exceeds,Wronged, cursed, despised, misunderstood—Oh, all-enduring multitude,Rejoice! amid you tears, rejoice!There issues from this grave a voice,Proclaiming your long night is o'er,Your day-dawn breaks from shore to shore.You have redeemed his pledge, remainedSecure, erect, and self-sustained,Holding more dear one thing alone,Even than the blood of dearest son,Revering with religious aweThe inviolable might of Law.
(A Dream.)
Not a stain,In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky—Not a ripple on the black translucent laneOf the palace-walled lagoon.Not a cryAs the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,Through the golden afternoon.
From this heightWhere the carved, age-yellowed balcony o'erjutsYonder liquid, marble pavement, see the lightShimmer soft beneath the bridge,That abutsOn a labyrinth of water-ways and shutsHalf their sky off with its ridge.
We shall markAll the pageant from this ivory porch of ours,Masques and jesters, mimes and minstrels, while we harkTo their music as they fare.Scent their flowersFlung from boat to boat in rainbow radiant showersThrough the laughter-ringing air.
See! they come,Like a flock of serpent-throated black-plumed swans,With the mandoline, viol, and the drum,Gems afire on arms ungloved,Fluttering fans,Floating mantles like a great moth's streaky vansSuch as Veronese loved.
But beholdIn their midst a white unruffled swan appear.One strange barge that snowy tapestries enfold,White its tasseled, silver prow.Who is here?Prince of Love in masquerade or Prince of Fear,Clad in glittering silken snow?
Cheek and chinWhere the mask's edge stops are of the hoar-frosts hue,And no eyebeams seem to sparkle from withinWhere the hollow rings have place.Yon gay crewSeem to fly him, he seems ever to pursue.'T is our sport to watch the race.
At his sideStands the goldenest of beauties; from her glance,From her forehead, shines the splendor of a bride,And her feet seem shod with wings,To entrance,For she leaps into a wild and rhythmic dance,Like Salome at the King's.
'T is his aimJust to hold, to clasp her once against his breast,Hers to flee him, to elude him in the game.Ah, she fears him overmuch!Is it jest,—Is it earnest? a strange riddle lurks half-guessedIn her horror of his touch.
For each timeThat his snow-white fingers reach her, fades some rayFrom the glory of her beauty in its prime;And the knowledge grows upon us that the danceIs no play'Twixt the pale, mysterious lover and the fay—But the whirl of fate and chance.
Where the tideOf the broad lagoon sinks plumb into the sea,There the mystic gondolier hath won his bride.Hark, one helpless, stifled scream!Must it be?Mimes and minstrels, flowers and music, where are ye?Was all Venice such a dream?
Air and sky are swathed in goldFold on fold,Light glows through the trees like wine.Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss'Neath his kiss,Breathless in a trance divine.
Nature pauses from her task,Just to baskIn these lull'd transfigured hours.The green leaf nor stays nor goes,But it growsRoyaler than mid-June's flowers.
Such impassioned silence fillsAll the hillsBurning with unflickering fire—Such a blood-red splendor stainsThe leaves' veins,Life seems one fulfilled desire.
While earth, sea, and heavens shine,Heart of mine,Say, what art thou waiting for?Shall the cup ne'er reach the lip,But still slipTill the life-long thirst give o'er?
Shall my soul, no frosts may tame,Catch new flameFrom the incandescent air?In this nuptial joy apart,Oh my heart,Whither shall we lonely fare?
Seek some dusky, twilight spot,Quite forgotOf the Autumn's Bacchic fire.Where soft mists and shadows sleep,There outweepBarren longing's vain desire.
ECHOES.
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,The freshness of the elder lays, the mightOf manly, modern passion shall alightUpon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)With the world's strong-armed warriors and reciteThe dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.But if thou ever in some lake-floored caveO'erbrowed by hard rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,Misprize thou not these echoes that belongTo one in love with solitude and song.
SUCCESS.
Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain,The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng.These I ignore to-day and only longTo pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain,One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song,For all the victories of man's high endeavor,Palm-bearing, laureled deeds that live forever,The splendor clothing him whose will is strong.Hast thou beheld the deep, glad eyes of oneWho has persisted and achieved? Rejoice!On naught diviner shines the all-seeing sun.Salute him with free heart and choral voice,'Midst flippant, feeble crowds of spectres wan,The bold, significant, successful man.
THE NEW COLOSSUS.*
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to be free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"*Written in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, 1883.
VENUS OF THE LOUVRE.
Down the long hall she glistens like a star,The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.When first the enthralled enchantress from afarDazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,As when she guided once her dove-drawn car,—But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love.Here Heine wept! Here still we weeps anew,Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move,While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain.
CHOPIN.
I.
A dream of interlinking hands, of feetTireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet,Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glowOf branching lights sets off the changeful charmsOf glancing gems, rich stuffs, dazzling snowOf necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.Hark to the music! How beneath the strainOf reckless revelry, vibrates and sobsOne fundamental chord of constant pain,The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.
II.
Who shall proclaim the golden fable falseOf Orpheus' miracles? This subtle strainAbove our prose-world's sordid loss and gainLightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz,The lyric prelude, the nocturnal songOf love and languor, varied visions rise,That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes.The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long,The seraph-souled musician, breathes againEternal eloquence, immortal pain.Revived the exalted face we know so well,The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame,Slowly consuming with its inward flame,We stir not, speak not, lest we break the spell.
III.
A voice was needed, sweet and true and fineAs the sad spirit of the evening breeze,Throbbing with human passion, yet divineAs the wild bird's untutored melodies.A voice for him 'neath twilight heavens dim,Who mourneth for his dead, while round him fallThe wan and noiseless leaves. A voice for himWho sees the first green sprout, who hears the callOf the first robin on the first spring day.A voice for all whom Fate hath set apart,Who, still misprized, must perish by the way,Longing with love, for that they lack the artOf their own soul's expression. For all theseSing the unspoken hope, the vague, sad reveries.
IV.
Then Nature shaped a poet's heart—a lyreFrom out whose chords the lightest breeze that blowsDrew trembling music, wakening sweet desire.How shall she cherish him? Behold! she throwsThis precious, fragile treasure in the whirlOf seething passions; he is scourged and stung,Must dive in storm-vext seas, if but one pearlOf art or beauty therefrom may be wrung.No pure-browed pensive nymph his Muse shall be,An amazon of thought with sovereign eyes,Whose kiss was poison, man-brained, worldly-wise,Inspired that elfin, delicate harmony.Rich gain for us! But with him is it well?The poet who must sound earth, heaven, and hell!
(After Robert Schumann.)
Prelude.
Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-JulyHung heavy, brooding over land and sea:Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmonyWith the wild, restless tone of air and sky.Shall we not call him Prospero who heldIn his enchanted hands the fateful keyOf that tempestuous hour's mystery,And with him to wander by a sun-bright shore,To hear fine, fairy voices, and to flyWith disembodied Ariel once moreAbove earth's wrack and ruin? Far and nighThe laughter of the thunder echoed loud,And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud.
I.
Floating upon a swelling wave of sound,We seemed to overlook an endless sea:Poised 'twixt clear heavens and glittering surf were we.We drank the air in flight: we knew no boundTo the audacious ventures of desire.Nigh us the sun was dropping, drowned in gold;Deep, deep below the burning billows rolled;And all the sea sang like a smitten lyre.Oh, the wild voices of those chanting waves!The human faces glimpsed beneath the tide!Familiar eyes gazed from profound sea-caves,And we, exalted, were as we had died.We knew the sea was Life, the harmonious cryThe blended discords of humanity.
II.
Look deeper yet: mark 'midst the wave-blurred mass,In lines distinct, in colors clear defined,The typic groups and figures of mankind.Behold within the cool and liquid glassBright child-folk sporting with smooth yellow shells,Astride of dolphins, leaping up to kissFair mother-faces. From the vast abyssHow joyously their thought-free laughter wells!Lulled by the overwhelming water's sound,And some make mouths at dragons, undismayed.Oh dauntless innocence! The gulfs profoundReecho strangely with their ringing glee,And with wise mermaids' plaintive melody.
III.
What do the sea-nymphs in that coral cave?With wondering eyes their supple forms they bendO'er something rarely beautiful. They lendTheir lithe white arms, and through the golden waveThey lift it tenderly. Oh blinding sight!A naked, radiant goddess tranced in sleep,Full-limbed, voluptuous, 'neath the mantling sweepOf auburn locks that kiss her ankles white!Upward they bear her, chanting low and sweet:The clinging waters part before their way,Jewels of flame are dancing 'neath their feet.Up in the sunshine, in soft foam, they layTheir precious burden, and return forlorn.Oh, bliss! oh, anguish! Mortals, LOVE is born!
IV.
Hark! from unfathomable deeps a dirgeSwells sobbing through the melancholy air:Where Love has entered, Death is also there.The wail outrings the chafed, tumultuous surge;Ocean and earth, the illimitable skies,Prolong one note, a mourning for the dead,The cry of souls not to be comforted.What piercing music! Funeral visions rise,And send the hot tears raining down our cheek.We see the silent grave upon the hillWith its lone lilac-bush. O heart, be still!She will not rise, she will not stir nor speak.Surely, the unreturning dead are blest.Ring on, sweet dirge, and knell us to our rest!
V.
Upon the silver beach the undines danceWith interlinking arms and flying hair;Like polished marble gleam their limbs left bare;Upon their virgin rites pale moonbeams glance.Softer the music! for their foam-bright feetPrint not the moist floor where they trip their round:Affrighted they will scatter at a sound,Leap in their cool sea-chambers, nimbly fleet,And we shall doubt that we have ever seen,While our sane eyes behold stray wreaths of mist,Shot with faint colors by the moon-rays kissed,Floating snow-soft, snow-white, where these had been.Already, look! the wave-washed sands are bare,And mocking laughter ripples through the air.
Epilogue.
Forth in the sunlit, rain-bathed air we stepped,Sweet with the dripping grass and flowering vine,And saw through irised clouds the pale sun shine.Back o'er the hills the rain-mist slowly creptLike a transparent curtain's slivery sheen;And fronting us the painted bow was arched,Whereunder the majestic cloud-shapes marched:In the wet, yellow light the dazzling greenOf lawn and bush and tree seemed stained with blue.Our hearts o'erflowed with peace. With smiles we spakeOf partings in the past, of courage new,Of high achievement, of the dreams that makeA wonder and a glory of our days,And all life's music but a hymn of praise.
I see it as it looked one afternoonIn August,—by a fresh soft breeze o'erblown.The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.The shining waters with pale currents strewn,The quiet fishing smacks, the Eastern cove,The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.The luminous grasses, and the merry sunIn the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirpOf crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,Light summer clouds fantastical as sleepChanging unnoted while I gazed thereon.All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.
1856.
Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,And martial strains, the full-voiced paean swells.The air is starred with flags, the chanted massThrongs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarmWith glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass,In holiday confusion, class with class,And over all the spring, the sun-floods warm!In the Imperial palace that March morn,The beautiful young mother lay and smiled;For by her side just breathed the Prince, her child,Heir to an empire, to the purple born,Crowned with the Titan's name that stirs the heartLike a blown clarion—one more Bonaparte.
1879.
Born to the purple, lying stark and dead,Transfixed with poisoned spears, beneath the sunOf brazen Africa! Thy grave is one,Fore-fated youth (on whom were visitedFollies and sins not thine), whereat the world,Heartless howe'er it be, will pause to singA dirge, to breathe a sigh, a wreath to flingOf rosemary and rue with bay-leaves curled.Enmeshed in toils ambitious, not thine own,Immortal, loved boy-Prince, thou tak'st thy standWith early doomed Don Carlos, hand in handWith mild-browed Arthur, Geoffrey's murdered son.Louis the Dauphin lifts his thorn-ringed head,And welcomes thee, his brother, 'mongst the dead.
So, Calchas, on the sacred Palatine,Thou thought of Mopsus, and o'er wastes of seaA flower brought your message. I divine(Through my deep art) the kindly mockeryThat played about your lips and in your eyes,Plucking the frail leaf, while you dreamed of home.Thanks for the silent greeting! I shall prize,Beyond June's rose, the scentless flower of Rome.All the Campagna spreads before my sight,The mouldering wall, the Caesars' tombs unwreathed,Rome and the Tiber, and the yellow light,Wherein the honey-colored blossom breathed.But most I thank it—egoists that we be!For proving then and there you thought of me.
There was a man who watched the river flowPast the huge town, one gray November day.Round him in narrow high-piled streets at playThe boys made merry as they saw him go,Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,The immortal screed he held within his hand.For he was walking in an April landWith Faust and Helen. Shadowy as a dreamWas the prose-world, the river and the town.Wild joy possessed him; through enchanted skiesHe saw the cranes of Ibycus swoop down.He closed the page, he lifted up his eyes,Lo—a black line of birds in wavering threadBore him the greetings of the deathless dead!
An Apologue.
("Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned;this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned;therefore he is not a poet.")
No man had ever heard a nightingale,When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirredTo study and define—what is a bird,To classify by rote and book, nor failTo mark its structure and to note the scaleWhereon its song might possibly be heard.Thus far, no farther;—so he spake the word.When of a sudden,—hark, the nightingale!
Oh deeper, higher than he could divineThat all-unearthly, untaught strain! He sawThe plain, brown warbler, unabashed. "Not mine"(He cried) "the error of this fatal flaw.No bird is this, it soars beyond my line,Were it a bird, 't would answer to my law."
When the vexed hubbub of our world of gainRoars round about me as I walk the street,The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beatOf Toil's incessant hammer, the fierce strainOf struggle hand to hand and brain to brain,Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat,The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat,And all at once I stand enthralled againWithin a marble minster over-seas.I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creepsTo kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleepsA lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies,And every day in dusky glory steepsTheir sculptured slumber of five centuries.
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no lessWith passion than with tears, the Muse shall blessThe poet-soul to help and soothe with song.Not then she bids his trembling lips expressThe aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brainOne full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,He, lonely in the twilight, sees the paleDivine Consoler, featured like Regret,Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.Then his lips ope to sing—as mine do now.
Therefore I dare reveal my private woe,The secret blots of my imperfect heart,Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert,Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know,That even as I am, thou also art.Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go,To pause and bide with me, to whisper low:"Not I alone am weak, not I apartMust suffer, struggle, conquer day by day.Here is my very cross by strangers borne,Here is my bosom-sun wherefrom I prayHourly deliverance—this my rose, my thorn.This woman my soul's need can understand,Stretching o'er silent gulfs her sister hand."
What hast thou done to this dear friend of mine,Thou cold, white, silent Stranger? From my handHer clasped hand slips to meet the grasp of thine;Here eyes that flamed with love, at thy commandStare stone-blank on blank air; her frozen heartForgets my presence. Teach me who thou art,Vague shadow sliding 'twixt my friend and me.I never saw thee till this sudden hour.What secret door gave entrance unto thee?What power in thine, o'ermastering Love's own power?
Come closer, kind, white, long-familiar friend,Embrace me, fold me to thy broad, soft breast.Life has grown strange and cold, but thou dost bendMild eyes of blessing wooing to my rest.So often hast thou come, and from my sideSo many hast thou lured, I only bideThy beck, to follow glad thy steps divine.Thy world is peopled for me; this world's bare.Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.Thou art supreme Love—kiss me—I am thine!
I.
As the blind Milton's memory of light,The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,Wrought joys for them surpassing all things knownIn our restricted sphere of sound and sight,—So while the glaring streets of brick and stoneVex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,I will give rein to Fancy, taking flightFrom dismal now and here, and dwell aloneWith new-enfranchised senses. All day long,Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,While ye chase beauty over land and sea?Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.
II.
Who grasps the substance? who 'mid shadows strays?He who within some dark-bright wood reclines,'Twixt sleep and waking, where the needled pinesHave cushioned all his couch with soft brown sprays?He notes not how the living water shines,Trembling along the cliff, a flickering haze,Brimming a wine-bright pool, nor lifts his gazeTo read the ancient wonders and the signs.Does he possess the actual, or do I,Who paint on air more than his sense receives,The glittering pine-tufts with closed eyes behold,Breathe the strong resinous perfume, see the skyQuiver like azure flame between the leaves,And open unseen gates with key of gold?
The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,The revelation of the star-strewn deep,World above world, and heaven over heaven.Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sightRests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light,High in the tower, an earthly star of even.Hers is the faith in saints' and angels' power,And mediating love—she breathes a prayerFor yon tired watcher in the gray old tower.He the shrewd, skeptic poet unawareFeels comforted and stilled, and knows not whenceFalls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.
Would I had waked this morn where Florence smiles,A-bloom with beauty, a white rose full-blown,Yet rich in sacred dust, in storied stone,Precious past all the wealth of Indian isles—From olive-hoary Fiesole to feedOn Brunelleschi's dome my hungry eye,And see against the lotus-colored sky,Spring the slim belfry graceful as a reed.To kneel upon the ground where Dante trod,To breathe the air of immortalityFrom Angelo and Raphael—TO BE—Each sense new-quickened by a demi-god.To hear the liquid Tuscan speech at whiles,From citizen and peasant, to beholdThe heaven of Leonardo washed with gold—Would I had waked this morn where Florence smile!*Written before visiting Florence.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.DON JOHN of AUSTRIA.JOSEF RIBERA, the Spagnoletto.LORENZO, noble young Italian artist, pupil of Ribera.DON TOMMASO MANZANO.LUCA, servant to Ribera.A GENTLEMAN.FIRST LORD.SECOND LORD.MARIA-ROSA, daughter to Ribera.ANNICCA, daughter to Ribera, and wife to Don Tommaso.FIAMETTA, servant to Maria-Rosa.ABBESS.LAY-SISTER.FIRST LADY.SECOND LADY.Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Servants.
SCENE—During the first four acts, in Naples; latter part of thefifth act, in Palermo. Time, about 1655.