Eudora A Tragedy |
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SCENE VII.
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 | Eudora |  |
SCENE VII.
VERINO, EUDORA.VERINO.
Talk'st thou to me of pardon? gracious Heaven!
Why have I lived to this? O tell me why
You suffer thus to creep on earth a wretch,
Once great in arms, now doomed to stand exposed,
Weak, and unable to revenge the scorn,
Which every passing coward heaps upon him!
Return! return! sole succour of my age!
Return, my Son! in whom alone I live!
Come thou to heal the sufferings of my soul,
To throw dishonor back upon our foes,
And crush the slaves, who dare insult thy father!
EUDORA.
Yes! he will come, with all-enlightening virtue,
Come, to confound the dark designs of falsehood,
And bid our troubled hearts revive again.
VERINO.
I think he will, Eudora! but alas!
Now that the fiercer fit of rage has left me,
Distracting thoughts rush in upon my mind:
The Prince, whose loss I feel with truest sorrow,
Dead on the sudden!—under Raymond's roof!—
O, if ambition—if the lust of power,
Could have so far—No! no! I will not think it;—
Yet whence could this—
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O my most honor'd Father,
Let not the trouble of your soul so far
O'erwhelm your reason, as to make you doubt
Of things impossible.
VERINO.
Impossible!
Thou well, my child, mayst call impossible,
What to thy nature must appear most strange;
Thou ne'er hast felt but gentle, fond desires;
Softness beyond thy sex, unclouded truth,
And sweet serenity of soul are thine:
Hence little knowst thou of the mind of man,
That wild, tempestuous, ever-shifting scene,
Where noblest faculties oft only serve
To minister to vice—where the fierce shock
Of lawless thoughts and turbulent desires
Will oft destroy the fairest plans of action,
By virtue form'd, and ratified by reason.
EUDORA.
Tho' little read in knowledge of mankind,
I know the heart, the inmost soul of Raymond
Incapable of ill, and true to honor;
His passions swell not to a wild excess,
And combat only on the side of virtue.
VERINO.
There, there, dear daughter, is my sole support;
Could I believe—no! thou hast rightly said:
It is impossible: and I have injured
My generous boy in doubting but a moment.—
Struck by the lustre of superior truth
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Our country too, if she can be deceived,
Shall soon repent the error, and behold,
With conscious pride, her young deliverer
Shine forth again with undiminish'd glory.
| Eudora | |