Mortadello

67 ACT IV SCENE I. A street in Venice. ALESSANDRO, upon a bridge overlooking a narrow canal. He leans heavily, weary, and decrepit. ALESSANDRO. HE streets reek, shimmer, reel, crack with infernal heat ; The sun’s a raving wheel, a pulse of hell to beat Its hammer on the hours. The heavens have let loose Hell’s harsh and horrible powers. All earth’s a smouldering fuse Trained to the final day that fronts the Judgement seat : The elements pass away molten with fervid heat— I have lain prostrate, stunned, not moving hand or foot, Morose and moribund, malevolent and mute, Red nightmare hunting down black nightmare in my brain, My consciousness a crown of unimagined pain, All being dulled and dense, this one chord twanged, the lust That stirs its somnolence, a serpent in the dust ; The lust at last to win my Monica to me, Bathe in the fires of sin through blind eternity ! Beat, beat ! A giant beast is throbbing in my blood— How turn the fast to feast, the drought again to flood ? If I could guess the thought behind those icy eyes. I would have blithe, lithe sport with the cunning cockatrice ! T