University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

—The Street.
Enter Sir Valentine.
Sir Val.
Spite of my failing heart, thus far I've come
With love to urge me, love to waive me back.
My duty tender'd, fortune made or lost—
Not tender'd, absolutely lost—no chance
Permitted me to win! 'Tis Hero's form
With the fair essence—match for thing so fair!—
To Hero's form, without! It is a whole,
Past calculation rich, against a part,
And that the poorest—yet consummate rich,
And I must play for both, or neither win!
Or winning one, the other quite forego!
It cannot be she loves me! Hero love me!
A prideful pleasure kindles at the thought—
But comes the gentle Ruth, and puts it out
With genial brightness of bland nature, as
The sun a little fire. O sun most fair,
I richer were ne'er to have known thy light
Than knowing it to lose it. Ne'er did man
Draw lots with chances more opposed than mine.
A little moment I am made or lost;
Lost past retrieving—past addition made!
Then must I, like a desperate gamester, on!
Throw fear of loss aside—though loss of all—
And think of nothing but the chance of gain
That makes me rich for life!—past affluence!

[Goes out.