Age sits with decent grace upon his visage, And worthily becomes his silver locks; He wears the marks of many years well spent, Of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience; A friend like this would suit my sorrows well. Fortune, I fear me, sir, has meant you ill, [_to Dumont._ Who pays your merit with that scanty pittance, Which my poor hand and humble roof can give. But to supply those golden vantages, Which elsewhere you might find, expect to meet A just regard and value for your worth, The welcome of a friend, and the free partnership Of all that little good the world allows me. _Dum._ You over-rate me much; and all my answer Must be my future truth; let that speak for me, And make up my deserving. _Jane S._ Are you of England? _Dum._ No, gracious lady, Flanders claims my birth; At Antwerp has my constant biding been, Where sometimes I have known more plenteous days Than these which now my failing-age affords. _Jane S._ Alas! at Antwerp! O, forgive my tears! [_weeping._ They fall for my offences----and must fall Long, long, ere they shall wash my stains away. You knew perhaps--O, grief! O, shame!--my husband. _Dum._ I knew him well; but stay this flood of anguish. The senseless grave feels not your pious sorrows: Three years and more are past, since I was bid, With many of our common friends, to wait him To his last peaceful mansion. I attended, Sprinkled his clay-cold corse with holy drops, According to our church's rev'rend rite, And saw him laid, in hallow'd ground, to rest. _Jane S._ Oh, that my soul had known no joy but him! That I had liv'd within his guiltless arms, And dying slept in innocence beside him! But now his honest dust abhors the fellowship, And scorns to mix with mine. _Enter a Servant._ _Serv._ The lady Alicia Attends your leisure. _Jane S._ Say, I wish to see her. [_exit Servant._ Please, gentle sir, one moment to retire, I'll wait you on the instant, and inform you Of each unhappy circumstance, in which Your friendly aid and counsel much may stead me. [_exeunt Belmour and Dumont._ _Enter Alicia._ _Alic._ Still, my fair friend, still shall I find you thus? Still shall these sighs heave after one another, These trickling drops chase one another still, As if the posting messengers of grief Could overtake the hours fled far away, And make old time come back? _Jane S._ No, my Alicia, Heaven and his saints be witness to my thoughts, There is no hour of all my life o'er past, That I could wish should take its turn again. _Alic._ And yet some of those days my friend has known, Some of those years, might pass for golden ones, At least if womankind can judge of happiness. What could we wish, we who delight in empire, Whose beauty is our sov'reign good, and gives us Our reasons to rebel, and pow'r to reign; What could we more than to behold a monarch, Lovely, renown'd, a conqueror, and young, Bound in our chains, and sighing at our feet?