THE DYNASTS ACT
And holds it blissful to obey /— He said, " Go to; it is my whim
" To bed a bride without delay, Who shall unite my dull new name With one that shone in Caesars day.
" She must conceive—you hear my claim ?— And bear a son—no daughter, mind— Who shall hand on my form and fame
" To future times as I have designed; And at the birth throughout the land Must cannon roar and alp-horns wind ! "
The Will grew conscious at command, And ordered issue as he planned.
The interior of the Palace is veiled.
SCENE IV
SPAIN. ALBUERA
The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the village of Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summit of a line of hills on which the English and their allies are ranged under Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to the yght foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detached from the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill are untrodden —though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of the most murderous struggle of the whole war.
The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its stream flowing behind it from the distance on the right A creeping brook at the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the stream by the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces are visible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several miles in area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind the furthest verge - of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. The birds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different from every other day
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