University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

The Scene Changes.
Enter Guards making way for the Queen.
1. Guar.
Room there, bear back; room for the Queen.

Enter Semanthe in white, attended with six Ladies in Mourning; Bassanes, Guards, and Attendants.
Quee.
Kind Gentlemen, there needs not this formality,
I am past all State Ceremony now,
Alas, there's no distinction in the Grave,
The proudest Sovereign Head when laid in Dust,
Sleeps on as Course a Pillow as a Pesant's.
And Oh! there opes that narrow Gate to Heav'n,
That Majesty it self must stoop as humbly
For ent'rance there, as the poor crawling Cottager:
Well Gentlemen, you come to see me die;
To see the scatter'd ashes of your Queen,
Blown round the spreading Globe, but oh! my friends,
Cou'd but my spotless Soul be seen as plainly,
Oh! to the utmost corners of the Earth,
The sounding Trump of my immortal innocence,
Wou'd fill Fame's swelling vollume with a story,
So full of woe, and that unequal fate,
As tender drowning eyes wou'd melt to read,
And the hard cause of poor Semanthe dead,
Even distant worlds, and pittying ages plead.

[Exit Omn.