For, while my former flames remain within, Repentance is but want of power to sin. With mortal hatred I pursued his life, Nor he, nor you, were guilty of the strife; Nor I, but as I loved; yet all combined, Your beauty, and my impotence of mind; And his concurrent flame, that blew my fire; For still our kindred souls had one desire. He had a moment's right, in point of time; Had I seen first, then his had been the crime. Fate made it mine, and justified his right; Nor holds this earth a more deserving knight, For virtue, valour, and for noble blood, Truth, honour, all that is comprised in good; So help me heaven, in all the world is none So worthy to be loved as Palamon. He loves you too, with such a holy fire, As will not, cannot, but with life expire: Our vowed affections both have often tried, Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long-suffering, and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity on the faithful Palamon.-- This was his last; for death came on amain, And exercised below his iron reign; Then upward to the seat of life he goes; Sense fled before him, what he touched he froze: Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw, Though less and less of Emily he saw; So, speechless, for a little space he lay; Then grasped the hand he held, and sighed his soul away. But whither went his soul, let such relate Who search the secrets of the future state: Divines can say but what themselves believe; Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative; For, were all plain, then all sides must agree, And faith itself be lost in certainty. To live uprightly, then, is sure the best; To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest. The soul of Arcite went where heathens go, Who better live than we, though less they know. In Palamon a manly grief appears; Silent he wept, ashamed to show his tears. Emilia shrieked but once; and then, oppressed With sorrow, sunk upon her lover's breast: Till Theseus in his arms conveyed, with care, Far from so sad a sight, the swooning fair. 'Twere loss of time her sorrow to relate; } Ill bears the sex a youthful lover's fate, } When just approaching to the nuptial state: } But, like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast, That all at once it falls, and cannot last. The face of things is changed, and Athens now, That laughed so late, becomes the scene of woe: Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state, With tears lament the knight's untimely fate. Nor[172] greater grief in falling Troy was seen For Hector's death, but Hector was not then. Old men with dust deformed their hoary hair; The women beat their breasts, their cheeks they tear. "Why would'st thou go, (with one consent they cry,) When thou hadst gold enough, and Emily!"[173] Theseus himself, who should have cheered the grief Of others, wanted now the same relief: