For other causes I forbore to soothe
Their fury to Favonian gentleness;

I could and would not. (Thus I wake in

him

[Aside. A love of magic art.) Let not this tempest, Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder; For by my art the sun would turn as pale 160 As his weak sister with unwonted fear. And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven Written as in a record; I have pierced The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres And know them as thou knowest every corner Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work

170

A charm over this waste and savage wood,
This Babylon of crags and agèd trees,
Filling its leafy coverts with a horror
Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest
Of these wild oaks and pines-and as from thee
I have received the hospitality

Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit

Of

years of toil in recompense; whate'er Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought As object of desire, that shall be thine.

*

*

*

*

181

And thenceforth shall so firm an amity
'Twixt thee and me be, that neither fortune,
The monstrous phantom which pursues success,
That careful miser, that free prodigal,
Who ever alternates with changeful hand,
Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,
That loadstar of the ages, to whose beam
The winged years speed o'er the intervals
Of their unequal revolutions; nor
Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars

Rule and adorn the world, can ever make
The least division between thee and me,
Since now I find a refuge in thy favour.

190

SCENE III.-The DÆMON tempts JUSTINA, who is a Christian.

DÆMON.

Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,

Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy !
From thy prison-house set free

The spirits of voluptuous death,

That with their mighty breath

They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts; Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,

Till her guiltless phantasy

Full to overflowing be!

And, with sweetest harmony,

Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things

move

To love, only to love.

Let nothing meet her eyes

But signs of Love's soft victories;

Let nothing meet her ear

But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow,

So that from faith no succour she may borrow, But, guided by my spirit blind

And in a magic snare entwined,

She may now seek Cyprian.

Begin, while I in silence bind

20

My voice,when thy sweet song thou hast began.

A VOICE (within).

What is the glory far above

All else in human life?

ALL.

Love! love!

[While these words are sung, the DÆMON goes out at one door, and JUSTINA enters at another.

THE FIRST VOICE.

There is no form in which the fire

Of love its traces has impressed not.
Man lives far more in love's desire
Than by life's breath, soon possessed not.
If all that lives must love or die,
All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
With one consent to Heaven cry
That the glory far above

All else in life is

30

ALL.

Love! O love!

JUSTINA.

Thou melancholy thought which art
So flattering and so sweet, to thee
When did I give the liberty
Thus to afflict my heart?

What is the cause of this new power
Which doth my fevered being move,
Momently raging more and more?

What subtle pain is kindled now
Which from my heart doth overflow
Into my senses ?-

ALL.

40

Love, O, love!

JUSTINA.

'Tis that enamoured nightingale

Who gives me the reply;

He ever tells the same soft tale

Of passion and of constancy
To his mate, who rapt and fond,
Listening sits, a bough beyond.

Be silent, Nightingale-no more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,

If a bird can feel his so,
What a man would feel for me.
And, voluptuous vine, O thou
Who seekest most when least pursuing,-
To the trunk thou interlacest
Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,—
No more, with green embraces, vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,-
For whilst thus thy boughs entwine,

50

60

I fear lest thou should'st teach me, sophist, How arms might be entangled too.

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendour!
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance,
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,—
Leafy vine, unwreathe thy bower,
Restless sunflower, cease to move,-
Or tell me all, what poisonous power
Ye use against me-

70

ALL.

Love! love! love!

JUSTINA.

It cannot be !-Whom have I ever loved?
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain,
Floro and Lelio did I not reject?

And Cyprian?

80

[She becomes troubled at the name of CYPRIAN. Did I not requite him

With such severity, that he has fled

Where none has ever heard of him again?
Alas! I now begin to fear that this

May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
'Cyprian is absent, O me miserable!"

66

I know not what I feel! [More calmly] It must be pity

90

To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
And I the cause. [She again becomes troubled.
And yet if it were pity,
Floro and Lelio might have equal share,
For they are both imprisoned for my sake.
[Calmly] Alas! what reasonings are these?
It is

Enough I pity him, and that, in vain,
Without this ceremonious subtlety.

And woe is me! I know not where to find him

now,

Even should I seek him through this wide world.

Enter DEMON.

DÆMON.

Follow, and I will lead thee where he is.

JUSTINA.

ΙΟΙ

And who art thou, who hast found entrance

hither,