_Emp._ Did not my conscious eye flash out a flame,
To lighten those brown horrors, and disclose
The secret path I trod?
_Bend._ I could not find it, till you lent a clue
To that close labyrinth; how then should they?
_Emp._ I would be loth they should: it breeds contempt
For herds to listen, or presume to pry,
When the hurt lion groans within his den:
But is't not strange?
_Bend._ To love? not more than 'tis to live; a tax
Imposed on all by nature, paid in kind,
Familiar as our being.
_Emp._ Still 'tis strange
To me: I know my soul as wild as winds,
That sweep the desarts of our moving plains;
Love might as well be sowed upon our sands,
As in a breast so barren.
To love an enemy, the only one
Remaining too, whom yester sun beheld
Mustering her charms, and rolling, as she past
By every squadron, her alluring eyes,
To edge her champions' swords, and urge my ruin.
The shouts of soldiers, and the burst of cannon,
Maintain even still a deaf and murmuring noise;
Nor is heaven yet recovered of the sound,
Her battle roused: Yet, spite of me, I love.
_Bend._ What then controuls you?
Her person is as prostrate as her party.
_Emp._ A thousand things controul this conqueror:
My native pride to own the unworthy passion,
Hazard of interest, and my people's love.
To what a storm of fate am I exposed!--
What if I had her murdered!--'tis but what
My subjects all expect, and she deserves,--
Would not the impossibility
Of ever, ever seeing, or possessing,
Calm all this rage, this hurricane of soul?
_Bend.
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