Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/41

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For ever in my busy fancy dwells, Whene'er I think of wiving my lone state. It is not this; she has too many lures; Why wilt thou urge me on to meet her scorn? I am not worthy of her.

''Hart. (pushing him away with gentle anger)'' Go to! I praised thy modesty short-while, And now with dull and senseless perseverance, Thou would'st o'erlay me with it. Go thy ways! If thro' thy fault, thus shrinking from the onset, She should with this untoward cub be matched, 'Twill haunt thy conscience like a damning sin, And may it gnaw thee shrewdly! [

A small Apartment in the Castle; enter musing gloomily, and muttering to himself some time before he speaks aloud.

Rud. No, no; it is to formless air dissolved, This cherish'd hope, this vision of my brain! (Pacing to and fro, and then stopping and musing as before.) I daily stood contrasted in her sight With an ungainly fool; and when she smiled, MethoughtBut wherefore still upon this thought, Which was perhaps but a delusion then, Brood I with ceaseless torment? Never, never! O never more on me, from Orra's eye, Approving glance shall light, or gentle look!