University of Virginia Library

SCENE VII.

KING, PRINCESS.
KING.
Morality from thee! He braves high heaven,
And well may scorn my anger. Oh, my child!
This little hour, while I can call thee mine,
Close let me strain thee to my bursting heart:
Alas! thy aged father can no more
Than thus to fold thee; pour these scalding tears,
And drench thy tender bosom with his sorrows.

PRINCESS.
By my best hopes of happiness hereafter!
To see that reverend frame thus torn with anguish;
To hear those heart-fetch'd groans, is greater misery,
Than all the horrors of the doom that waits me:
I could put on a Roman constancy,
And go to death like sleep, did no soft sorrow
Hang on the mourning of surviving friends,
And wake a keener pang for their affliction.