Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/127

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Something of horrid power within thee dwells. Still, still that powerful eye doth suck me in Like a dark eddy to its wheeling core. Spare me! O spare me, Being of strange power, And at thy feet my subject head I'll lay. El. Alas, the piteous sight! to see her thus; The noble, generous, playful, stately Orra!

Out on thy hateful and ungenerous guile! Think'st thou I'll suffer o'er her wretched state The slightest shadow of a base controul? (Raising Orra from the ground.) No, rise thou stately flower with rude blasts rent; As honour'd art thou with thy broken stem And leafets strew'd, as in thy summer's pride. I've seen thee worshipp'd like a regal dame With ev'ry studied form of mark'd devotion. Whilst I, in distant silence, scarcely proffer'd Ev'n a plain soldier's courtesy; but now, No liege-man to his crowned mistress sworn, Bound and devoted is as I to thee; And he who offers to thy alter'd state The slightest seeming of diminish'd rev'rence, Thou'st wrung my heart.

Hart. Nay, do thou pardon me: I am to blame: