Come near,--- I’ll softly speak the rest!-- Alas! ’tis known to all the Crowd, Her guilty Love was all confest; And his, who so much Truth avow’d, My faithless Friends.--In Pleasure proud I sat, when these curs’d Tidings came; Their Guilt, their Flight was told aloud, And Envy smil’d to hear my shame! I call’d on Vengeance; at the Word She came:--Can I the Deed forget? I held the Sword, th’ accursed Sword, The Blood of his false Heart made wet; And that fair Victim paid her Debt, She pin’d, she died, she loath’d to live;-- I saw her dying--see her yet: Fair fallen Thing! my Rage forgive! Those Cherubs still, my Life to bless, Were left; could I my Fears remove, Sad Fears that check’d each fond Caress, And poison’d all parental Love: Yet that, with jealous Feelings strove, And would at last have won my Will, Had I not, Wretch! been doom’d to prove Th’ Extremes of mortal Good and Ill. In Youth! Health! Joy! in Beauty’s Pride! They droop’d: As Flowers when blighted bow, The dire Infection came:--They died, And I was curs’d--as I am now---- Nay frown not, angry Friend,--allow, That I was deeply, sorely tried; Hear then, and you must wonder how I could such Storms and Strifes abide. Storms!--not that Clouds embattled make, When they afflict this earthly Globe; But such as with their Terrors shake Man’s Breast, and to the bottom probe; They make the Hypocrite disrobe, They try us all, if false or true; For this, one Devil had pow’r on _Job_; And I was long the Slave of two. PHYSICIAN. Peace, peace, my Friend; these Subjects fly; Collect thy Thoughts--go calmly on.-- PATIENT. And shall I then the Fact deny? I was,--thou know’st,--I was begone, Like him who fill’d the Eastern Throne, To whom the WATCHER cried aloud[16]; That royal Wretch of _Babylon_, Who was so guilty and so proud. Like him with haughty, stubborn Mind, I, in my State, my Comforts sought; Delight and Praise I hop’d to find, In what I builded, planted, bought! Oh! Arrogance! by Misery taught-- Soon came a Voice! I felt it come; “Full be his Cup, with Evil fraught, “Dæmons his Guides, and Death his Doom!” Then was I cast from out my State; Two Fiends of Darkness led my Way; They wak’d me early, watch’d me late, My Dread by Night, my Plague by Day! Oh! I was made their Sport, their Play, Through many a stormy troubled Year, And how they us’d their passive Prey, Is sad to tell: but you shall hear.