University of Virginia Library

SCEN. II.

Bebricius musing, Fulvia.
Bebr.
Like Travellers, by light delusive led,
I've wander'd from my reason, and have trod
The mystic Labyrinth of mighty Love.
Say then; Bebricius, she be virtuous, good,
Stranger to thy requests, and cold as Ice!
Let her be so; the coyest may be won:
And shall I faint, when Paradise falls short
To the blest joys which dwell upon her lips?
Ha! she is here! I grow unto the Earth;
[Starts.
And the unruly Devil promts my Tongue.
Had I the Charms that Youth and Beauty bring,
The pow'r of Gods, or of their Substitutes;
To the Divinities which habit there,
And make a Throne Celestial in those eyes,
I'd prostrate all, and, with the gift, my self:
But, void of these, how shall I frame my speech
To merit pity? Say, thou beauteous Creature,
If I offend, in saying that I love?
For, If I do, the World must err, like me;
Worship those Eyes, as Persians do the Sun,
And justly Idolize thy excellence.

Ful.
Bebricius turn'd a Lover, at these years!
Does the soft God captive the Man of War?

Bebr.
Madam, he does; at vast expense he rules;
Tributes my being, makes my heart his Seat:
Ill Chance, to Camps and Martial deeds inur'd,
Has taught my Tongue a harsh unpolish'd way;
Yet Truth and Honesty, absent from Courts
Where gaudy Birds with borrow'd Feathers wing,
Dwells in my language. Possibly you may,
For I expect it, use me with neglect;
Do more than Daggers points could, wound:
But I have said, and wait my Destiny.

Ful.
Are you then serious? Was not all this fram'd,
Invented, to delude the hours away;
The tedious hours? For, Since Perpenna's absence,
Each day's delay appears an Age to me.

Bebr.
Ev'n from the first which blest me with your sight,
I've felt the pow'r of Beauty in my Brest,
Languish'd in Torture, and have hug'd my chain:
Morpheus could ne'r close up my eyes with rest,
But your Idea Revel'd in my Soul.

Ful.
Hold, Sir. This dialect does ill becom
The Tongue of him I alwaies thought a Friend.
Thus far, my Innocence will guard it self;
But farther, were a crime that unbefits
Perpenna's choice. Leave me, thou wretched man:
I will not punish thee with ought, but Love.

Bebr.
Know, cruel Fair, life without hope is Hell;
Wretched, as they who dwell in endless night:
I dreaded the ill Fate, which did compel
This doom from you. See, thou cruel Woman,
And judg, by this, the wondrous pow'r of Love,

Ful.
What means Bebricius?

Bebr.
Say, when I am dead,
Bebricius Life and Love were so unite.
That Death it self fell short to seperate.
If there be paths the Soul when banish'd treads,
Whether on burning Phlegeton, or Styx;
Upon the flaming Shores I'll call on thee,
And make thy Spirit lose all mortal bliss,
Rack'd with the Sympathy of pains like mine.

Ful.
Hold, barbarous man. Is't not enough I heard,
And in it suffer'd; but thou threat'st my Fame:
When vulgar crouds, not promt to judg, speak loud,
Enlarge Report, spread wide her Airy wings,
With seeming Subjects blazing Infamy?
If thou dost love, in death it self, the Soul,
Th'essential Seat of the Divinity,
Still cares, with danger of the living's fate:
And wilt thou wound in death, what living thou
Ador'st?

Bebr.
Rather than suffer pains beyond all speech,
Languish in Torture to Eternity,
I'll live to merit: but when stranger thoughts
Do find a gentle passage in your brest,
Oh, let the memory of your Slave appear
A pitying object, suing for relief.

Ful.
Death waiting on a Lover's words, till now
I've been a stranger to; you've ta'ne a way
To merit pity: what th'effects may be,
I dare not guess; but Time will lighten all.

Bebr.
So Gods, when mortals doom'd to Shades below,
Revoke the Sentence of the sinking Soul,
And give a glimps of Heav'n unto their sight,
To banish from the thought the fears of Night.

[Exeunt.