SCENE IV.
Sophia; Chorus.
Chorus.
Did you mark, my friends,
How the false wretch the weeping fair-one spurn'd?
Alas the while! to jest and sportive glee
Our neighbour bade us welcome; but I fear
To grief and anguish will his joys be turn'd.
Sophia,
(not seeing them.)
Inhuman monster! What withholds my tongue
From breathing curses on his perjur'd soul?
Why do I not upon the lightnings call
To blast his impious head? Oh me, my heart!
Spite of his cruelty, and perjur'd crimes,
Still, still I find the dear destroyer reigns
Sole lord and monarch of this foolish breast.
Oh grief of heart! where, whither shall I fly?
Say, black Despair, hast thou no pathless wild;
No forest to the cheerful eye of day
Impervious, where dark Horror reigns alone,
And where no single ray, no feeble beam
E'er interrupts the terrors of thy sway?
There would I fly, and from the world conceal
My shame and woes. Alas! my hapless sire!
My tender mother too! Ah, break my heart!
Chorus.
Say, neighbours, shall I soothe with comfort's voice
This child of Misery? Or shall we stand,
Yet unobserved, and let the hapless fair
Give, unrestrain'd, her bitter sorrows vent?
But see again she rears her woful head,
And to heav'n's high tribunal lifts her eyes,
With tears envelop'd. Pretty soul! alas!
Hard is his heart who could such tears resist.
Now see, with what a frantic attitude,
With what a glare of madness in her eye,
She to the thickest of the wood retires.
Let us not follow; for such heavy griefs
Need much of Solitude's composing calm,
Ere the sad soul is suited to receive
The healing balm of Comfort's soothing lore.
