Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/316

268 Yes—thy sophistry hath prevailed, Nempere!—'tis but blackening the memoir of thine offences!—Hark! what shriek broke upon the enthusiastic silence of twilight?—'Twas the fancied scream of one who loved Eloise long ago, but now is—dead. It warns thee— alas! 'tis unavailing!!—'Tis fled, but not for ever.

It is evening; the moon, which rode in cloudless and unsullied majesty, in the leaden-coloured east, hath hidden her pale beams in a dusky cloud, as if blushing to contemplate a scene of so much wickedness.

'Tis done; and amidst the vows of a transitory delirium of pleasure, regret, horror, and misery, arise! they shake their Gorgon locks at Eloise! appalled she shudders with affright, and shrinks from the contemplation of the consequences of her imprudence. Beware, Eloise!—a precipice, a frightful precipice yawns at thy feet! advance yet a step further, and thou perishest!—No, give not up thy religion—it is that alone which can support thee under the miseries, with which imprudence has so darkly marked the progress of thine existence!