ldier's death,
While friendly clouds of smoke shroud from all eyes
My last convulsive pangs, and I'm content.

BLAND [_with increasing emotion_].

Thou shalt not die! Curse on the laws of war!--
If worth like thine must thus be sacrificed,
To policy so cruel and unjust,
I will forswear my country and her service:
I'll hie me to the Briton, and with fire,
And sword, and every instrument of death
Or devastation, join in the work of war!
What, shall worth weigh for nought? I will avenge thee!

ANDRE.

Hold, hold, my friend; thy country's woes are full.
What! wouldst thou make me cause another traitor?
No more of this; and, if I die, believe me,
Thy country for my death incurs no blame.
Restrain thy ardour--but ceaselessly intreat,
That Andre may at least die as he lived,
A soldier.

BLAND.

By heaven thou shalt not die!--

[_BLAND rushes off: ANDRE looks after him with an expression of love
and gratitude, then retires up the stage. Scene closes._]

SCENE, _the GENERAL'S Quarters._

_Enter M'DONALD and SEWARD, in conversation._

M'DONALD [_coming forward_].

Three thousand miles the Atlantic wave rolls on,
Which bathed Columbia's shores, ere, on the strand
Of Europe, or of Afric, their continents,
Or sea-girt isles, it chafes.--

SEWARD.

Oh! would to heaven
That in mid-way between these sever'd worlds,
Rose barriers, all impassable to man,
Cutting off intercourse, till either side
Had lost all memory of the other!

M'DONALD.

What spur now goads thy warm imagination?

SEWARD.

Then might, perhaps, one land on earth be found,
Free from th' extremes of poverty and riches;
Where ne'er a scepter'd tyrant should be known,
Or tyrant lordling, curses of creation;--
Where the faint shrieks of woe-exhausted age,
Raving, in feeble madness, o'er the corse
Of a polluted daughter, stained by lust
Of viand-pamper'd luxury, might ne'er be heard;--
Where the blasted form of much abused
Beauty, by villainy seduced, by knowledge
All unguarded, might ne'er be view'd, flitting
Obscene, 'tween lamp and lamp, i' th' midnight street
Of all defiling city; where the child----

M'DONALD.

Hold! Shroud thy raven imagination!
Torture not me with images so curst!

SEWARD.

Soon shall our foes, inglorious, fly these shores.
Peace shall again return. Then Europe's ports
Shall pour a herd upon us, far more fell
Than those, her mercenary sons, who, now,
Threaten our s