_Mel._ No, not a moment's thought beyond my time.
Dispatch; 'tis much below me to attend
For one poor single fare.
_Mal._ So pitiless?
But yet I may command thee, and I will:
I love the Guise, even with my latest breath,
Beyond my soul, and my lost hopes of heaven:
I charge thee, by my short-lived power, disclose
What fate attends my master.
_Mel._ If he goes
To council when he next is called, he dies.
_Mal._ Who waits?
_Enter Servant._
Go, give my lord my last adieu;
Say, I shall never see his eyes again;
But if he goes, when next he's called, to council,
Bid him believe my latest breath, he dies.-- [_Exit Serv._
The sands run yet.--O do not shake the glass!--
[_Devil shakes the glass._
I shall be thine too soon!--Could I repent!--
Heaven's not confined to moments.--Mercy, mercy!
_Mel._ I see thy prayers dispersed into the winds,
And heaven has past them by.
I was an angel once of foremost rank,
Stood next the shining throne, and winked but half;
So almost gazed I glory in the face,
That I could bear it, and stared farther in;
'Twas but a moment's pride, and yet I fell,
For ever fell; but man, base earth-born man,
Sins past a sum, and might be pardoned more:
And yet 'tis just; for we were perfect light,
And saw our crimes; man, in his body's mire,
Half soul, half clod, sinks blindfold into sin,
Betrayed by frauds without, and lusts within.
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