in the drama itself! She "ventures to call it a musical drama," and it is so indeed—the only musical drama deserving the name that we know of in our language. Joanna takes care to make no people sing in situations in which it is not natural for them to do so; the songs are all sung by those who have little or nothing to act, and introduced when nothing very interesting is going on; and they are supposed not to be spontaneous expressions of sentiment in the singer, but (as songs in ordinary life usually are) compositions of other people, which have been often sung before, and are only generally applicable to the present occasion. In these few words—which are almost all her own—this great poetess has laid down the principles on which alone can any musical drama be constructed agreeably to nature.
But why a Musical Drama? Because the passion of Hope, if long dwelt on in a drama, was in danger, she felt, of turning tiresome and languid—not being so powerfully interesting as those that are more turbulent—and at the same time of being sunk into shade, or entirely overpowered, if relieved from it by variety of strongly marked characters in the inferior persons—therefore she introduced songs in several scenes on the principle she has explained—and now you know why The Beacon is a Musical Drama. But why The Beacon?
Because Aurora, a lady resident on a small island of the Mediterranean, about the middle of the fourteenth century, had promised, on the departure of her lover, Ermingard, to the Holy War, to kindle a Beacon on the cliff to guide his ship on his return from Palestine. Years pass—and no tidings of her hero—whom all but she have given up to the grave or the sea. There she nightly sits—deaf to all remonstrances—to all threats—and feeds the Beacon-fire, and the fire in her own faithful heart.
Behold, and hear her speak—but not now for it is broad daylight beside the Beacon—but in a rustic arbour in a Flower-Garden, with her attendant ladies, Edda and Viola, and Terentia her governante—kind as a mother. She mistakes the hour—and Terentia says
"Ter. You are deceived
Three hours have past, but past by you unheeded;
Who have the while in silent stillness sat,
Like one forlorn, that has no need of time.
Aur. In truth I have but little here to do
With tune or any thing besides. It passes
Hour follows hour; day follows day; and year,
If I so long shall last, will follow year:
Like drop that through the cover'd hermit's roof
Some cold spring filters, glancing on his eye
At measured intervals, but moving not
His fix'd, unvaried notice."
Edda, to cheer her mistress, asks leave to "sing the song she praised so much"—but Aurora was in another mood then—and she now merely replies—
"I thank thy kindnes—sing it if thou wilt;"
and then sits down on a low seat, her head supported between both her hands, with her elbows resting on her knees.
SONG.
"Where distant billows meet the sky,
A pale, dull light the seamen spy,
As spent they stand and tempest tost,
Their vessel struck, their rudder lost;
While distant homes where kinsman weep,
And graves full many a fathom deep,
By turns their fitful, gloomy thoughts portray:
''Tis some delusion of the sight,
Some northern streamer's paly light.'
'Fools!' saith roused Hope, with gen'rous scorn,
It is the blessed peep of morn,
And aid and safety come when comes the day.'
And so it is—the gradual shine
Spreads o'er heaven's verge its lengthen'd line:
Cloud after cloud begins to glow
And tint the changeful deep below;
Now sombre red, now amber bright,
Till upward breaks the blazing light;
Like floating fire the gleamy billows burn:
Far distant on the ruddy tide,
A black'ning sail is seen to glide;
Loud bursts their eager, joyful cry,
Their hoisted signal waves on high,
And life, and strength, and happy thoughts return.
Ter. Is not her voice improved in power and sweetness?
Ed. It is a cheering song.
Aur. It cheers those who are cheer'd.
Twelve years are past.
Their daughters matrons grown, their infants youths,
And they themselves with aged furrows mark'd;
