 | The Viceroy |  |
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SCENE IX.
THE VICEROY, CONSTANTIA, SYLVEYRA, GARCIA, VELORA.THE VICEROY.
And see another innocent, whom Castro
Has basely tortured by injurious passion!
O! Heaven, the sense of all your wrongs united
O'erwhelms my fainting spirit.
CONSTANTIA.
Gracious Heaven,
Relieve this anguish of his wounded soul.
THE VICEROY.
My lovely daughter, to this noble youth
Now let me, as a gift of expiation,
Present thy purity! no! no! my children!
Ye must not kneel: to me alone belongs
Humiliation; and my prostrate soul
Bends to that innocence, which I have wronged,
And may your generous hearts forget how deeply,
Nor let your hate attend me to the grave.
SYLVEYRA.
My honored father, could our love preserve thee!
THE VICEROY.
'Tis death alone can expiate my offences,
And his dark shades are gathering fast around me,
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Feel a fond pride in thy superior virtue:
And may that virtue, may thy chaste affections
Make thy pure days as full of peace and joy,
As mine have been of turbulence and horror!
Console thy peerless mother! let thy kindness
Repay, if possible, my cruelty!
And O! forever make this best of friends
The model of thy life! my faithful Garcia!
Thy friendship is the noblest legacy,
That I can leave these most beloved of beings!
My Isabel! where art thou? my dim eyes
Have lost thee, and are strained in vain to find
The dearest object of their failing sight—
With my last breath I bless thee—O farewell!
Nor think too hardly of a heart, which still
Doats on thy excellence! O! mercy Heaven!
(Dies.
GARCIA.
Farewell, great spirit! formed to grace the earth
With all the brightest qualities of man!
O'er life's rough ocean 'twas thy wish to steer
The course of steady virtue; but the storms
Of passion drove thee from thy destined way:
May all thy gallant deeds, and they were many,
Be justly blazoned in the tints of glory!
And be thy frailties buried in the grave!
Or but remembered with a kind concern,
To teach misguided man, that misery
Haunts all the hasty steps of lawless passion;
While gentler, just affections only bring
Unclouded peace, and purity of joy!
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