Come rushing on in youth, and what their rage requires. } And grant thy youth was exercised in arms, When love no leisure found for softer charms, My tender age in luxury was trained, } With idle ease and pageants entertained; } My hours my own, my pleasures unrestrained. } So bred, no wonder if I took the bent That seemed even warranted by thy consent; For when the father is too fondly kind, Such seed he sows, such harvest shall he find. Blame then thyself, as reason's law requires, (Since nature gave, and thou foment'st my fires;) If still those appetites continue strong, Thou may'st consider I am yet but young. Consider too, that, having been a wife, I must have tasted of a better life; And am not to be blamed, if I renew, By lawful means, the joys which then I knew. Where was the crime, if pleasure I procured; Young, and a woman, and to bliss inured? That was my case, and this is my defence:-- } I pleased myself, I shunned incontinence, } And, urged by strong desires, indulged my sense. } Left to myself, I must avow, I strove From public shame to screen my secret love, And, well acquainted with thy native pride, } Endeavoured what I could not help, to hide; } For which a woman's wit an easy way supplied. } How this, so well contrived, so closely laid, Was known to thee, or by what chance betrayed, Is not my care; to please thy pride alone, I could have wished it had been still unknown. Nor took I Guiscard by blind fancy led, Or hasty choice, as many women wed; But with deliberate care, and ripened thought, At leisure first designed, before I wrought. On him I rested, after long debate, And, not without considering, fixed my fate. His flame was equal, though by mine inspired; (For so the difference of our birth required:) Had he been born like me, like me his love Had first begun, what mine was forced to move: But thus beginning, thus we persevere; } Our passions yet continue what they were, } Nor length of trial makes our joys the less sincere. } At this my choice, though not by thine allowed, (Thy judgment herding with the common crowd,) Thou tak'st unjust offence; and, led by them, Dost less the merit than the man esteem. Too sharply, Tancred, by thy pride betrayed, Hast thou against the laws of kind inveighed; For all the offence is in opinion placed, Which deems high birth by lowly choice debased. This thought alone with fury fires thy breast, (For holy marriage justifies the rest,) That I have sunk the glories of the state, And mixed my blood with a plebeian mate: In which I wonder thou shouldst oversee } Superior causes, or impute to me } The fault of fortune, or the Fates' decree. } Or call it heaven's imperial power alone, Which moves on springs of justice, though unknown;