Eliza, a Tragedy
"…I would write to my lover
And to all roving men,
I would tell them of the grief and woe
That attend on their lies,
I would wish them have pity
On the flower when it dies."
-English folksong
A somber scene- A prison dark and foul,
Where ev'ry better prospect is defaced,
Where grim despair reigns from his tyrant throne,
And ev'ry dusky shadow seems to say
'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'
Within, small groups of desperate fellows sit,
And plot and ponder how they might be freed,
For debt is the inhabitants' one crime.
But all alone one troubled figure sits,
Excepting her companion, a small child-
A daughter, lovely though in shabby state
Whom in distraction often she forgets
To brood upon her sorrows which are great.
Her face is pale with illness and distress,
And all her clothing tattered and unkempt,
Yet still her manner is of one who once
Saw better times and more auspicious days,
Who once was loved and felt it in return.
Long she reflects upon her fall from grace
And to herself she mutters this, her tale:
I was an heiress, well provided for,
With beauty and with liveliness and health,
And ev'ry prospect seemed to open up,
Like flowers, at my coming to each place.
Now, what is left of all these happy hopes?
I was betrayed- a fortune to repair,
And married to a man I did not love,
I longed for one who was sent far beyond
The sea to India's hot and brutal clime,
And lacking him, was soon obliged to find
A consolation- he did not console,
But ruined me, flung from my husband's house.
The rest, a disarray of sordid vice
I am ashamed to own to- O, Forgive!
My dear, beloved cousin I have wronged,
Who bore so much for constancy to me-
Would I were constant! Would I merited
The tenderness you always, ever showed.
She ceases, wearied by her frenzied thoughts,
And on the dirty pallet sinks once more-
Her illness is too much for her to bear,
And soon she sinks into a fitful sleep.
She dreams of him that long ago she lost,
Who now her sleeping and her waking fill,
Full of remorse and longing for that life
That could not be, she thinks she hears his voice
As if from far away call out her name.
She wakes, and with a start beholds her Love,
Who kneels beside her, full of ardent grief
That his Eliza suffered as she did.
She wishes all her gladness to express,
But can say nothing but her lover's name
And sadly smile, but he would ask no more.
She next awakens in a soft-lit room
With sunlight streaming through the windowpanes
And all is cleanliness and hopeful peace.
Seated nearby, her lover seems relieved
To see her wake from such a long repose,
And silently caresses her weak hand.
Day after day he watches anxiously
As still she sinks- her breathing labored
Painful and shallow in delirium.
At near the end lucidity she gains,
She speaks, employing all her little strength.
'Forgive me for the pain that I have caused.'
Her head drops back and she is wrenched with pain,
Her passing is not happy or with peace,
And still more frantic with each moment passed
She seems to struggle for her very life.
'Tis all in vain- abruptly sinking down
She gasps and with a look of angst expires.
Poor Brandon, stoic almost to the last
Wishing to show his courage for her sake,
Cannot restrain himself upon her death,
Clasping her still warm hand, begins to weep.
Some fourteen years have passed- the Colonel still
Wears all the traces of his youthful woe,
His silence seen by his acquaintances
As mere bad temper brought on by his age.
So says Miss Marianne, lively and bright,
Of one on the wrong side of thirty-five,
But Brandon seems with young Miss Dashwood's gaze
To feel the warmth again which once he lost
And for the first time in these many years
Allows himself this small support- to hope.