University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Leonatus enters.
Leon.
Faustus is gone—or not yet come—I met
A man, who, passing in his haste, declared
The princess missing, and the court in uproar.
'Tis so—the deed is done—or doing!—Hold,
Hold, Faustus, or I execrate thy duty,
Worse than thy breach of faith—Why should she die?—
Who could survive, if all were to be doom'd
For one defect in nature?—That she loved me,
The proofs are mighty, as the mighty proofs
Of her incontinence—Was not her heart
Sufficient, then, to mine—tho' her sweet person
Were common as the kissing air?—Yes, Imogen,
Give me thy heart, in life or death, all mine,
I ask no other Heaven—but, no intrusion,
No sooty thought, no curs'd contamination!
O that eternal robber, who hath foul'd
The vessel of my peace! Though she were purged
By fire tenfold intense, though steep'd an age
In the Lethean surge, the deed obscene
Would never from her thought—O, she must die!—
That speaks the doom of Leonatus too,
Who cannot live divided—No, I feel
A force, more strong than nature, draw me after,
Though never more to join her—Imogen,
My dearest Imogen, why, why was this?—
If passion, boundless as the clasping air,
And warm as the meridian, might suffice,
It was not well, my love!—Is there no cure,
No hope, no help for this—to right or left,
Or forward thro' the length of time, tho' stretch'd
Far as existence?—O, sole misery!—
Your pardon, Heaven!—I ask you not for bliss;
I ask but for oblivion.—