MARMADUKE A rash deed!-- With that reproof I do resign a station Of which I have been proud. WILFRED (approaching MARMADUKE) O my poor Master! MARMADUKE Discerning Monitor, my faithful Wilfred, Why art thou here? [Turning to WALLACE.] Wallace, upon these Borders, Many there be whose eyes will not want cause To weep that I am gone. Brothers in arms! Raise on that dreary Waste a monument That may record my story: nor let words-- Few must they be, and delicate in their touch As light itself--be there withheld from Her Who, through most wicked arts, was made an orphan By One who would have died a thousand times, To shield her from a moment's harm. To you, Wallace and Wilfred, I commend the Lady, By lowly nature reared, as if to make her In all things worthier of that noble birth, Whose long-suspended rights are now on the eve Of restoration: with your tenderest care Watch over her, I pray--sustain her-- SEVERAL OF THE BAND (eagerly) Captain! MARMADUKE No more of that; in silence hear my doom: A hermitage has furnished fit relief To some offenders; other penitents, Less patient in their wretchedness, have fallen, Like the old Roman, on their own sword's point. They had their choice: a wanderer _must I_ go, The Spectre of that innocent Man, my guide. No human ear shall ever hear me speak; No human dwelling ever give me food, Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild, In search of nothing, that this earth can give, But expiation, will I wander on-- A Man by pain and thought compelled to live, Yet loathing life--till anger is appeased In Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die. * * * * * In June 1797 Coleridge wrote to his friend Cottle: "W. has written a tragedy himself. I speak with heart-felt sincerity, and, I think, unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man by his side, and yet I do not think myself a less man than I formerly thought myself. His drama is absolutely wonderful. You know I do not commonly speak in such abrupt and unmingled phrases, and therefore will the more readily believe me. There are in the piece those profound touches of the human heart which I find three or four times in the 'Robbers' of Schiller, and often in Shakspeare; but in W. there are no inequalities." On August 6, 1800, Charles Lamb wrote to Coleridge: