im.

MARQUIS.
Pardon, dear prince, if I can only meet
With wonder these tumultuous ecstacies.
Not thus I looked to find Don Philip's son.
A hectic red burns on your pallid cheek,
And your lips quiver with a feverish heat.
What must I think, dear prince? No more I see
The youth of lion heart, to whom I come
The envoy of a brave and suffering people.
For now I stand not here as Roderigo--
Not as the playmate of the stripling Carlos--
But, as the deputy of all mankind,
I clasp thee thus:--'tis Flanders that clings here
Around thy neck, appealing with my tears
To thee for succor in her bitter need.
This land is lost, this land so dear to thee,
If Alva, bigotry's relentless tool,
Advance on Brussels with his Spanish laws.
This noble country's last faint hope depends
On thee, loved scion of imperial Charles!
And, should thy noble heart forget to beat
In human nature's cause, Flanders is lost!

CARLOS.
Then it is lost.

MARQUIS.
What do I hear? Alas!

CARLOS.
Thou speakest of times that long have passed away.
I, too, have had my visions of a Carlos,
Whose cheek would fire at freedom's glorious name,
But he, alas! has long been in his grave.
He, thou seest here, no longer is that Carlos,
Who took his leave of thee in Alcala,
Who in the fervor of a youthful heart,
Resolved, at some no distant time, to wake
The golden age in Spain! Oh, the conceit,
Though but a child's, was yet divinely fair!
Those dreams are past!

MARQUIS.
Said you, those dreams, my prince!
And were they only dreams?

CARLOS.
Oh, let me weep,
Upon thy bosom weep these burning tears,
My only friend! Not one have I--not one--
In the wide circuit of this earth,--not one
Far as the sceptre of my sire extends,
Far as the navies bear the flag of Spain,
There is no spot--none--none, where I dare yield
An outlet to my tears, save only this.
I charge thee, Roderigo! Oh, by all
The hopes we both do entertain of heaven,
Cast me not off from thee, my friend, my friend!
[POSA bends over him in silent emotion.
Look on me, Posa, as an orphan child,
Found near the throne, and nurtured by thy love.
Indeed, I know not what a father is.
I am a monarch's son. Oh, were it so,
As my heart tells me that it surely is,
That thou from millions hast been chosen out
To comprehend my being; if it be true,
That all-creating nature has designed
In me to reproduce a Roderigo,
And on the morning of our life attuned
Our sou