_Arth._ A lazy pleasure trickles through my veins; Here could I stay, and well be cozened here. But honour calls;--is honour in such haste? Can it not bait at such a pleasing inn? No; for, the more I look, the more I long.-- Farewell, ye fair illusions! I must leave ye, While I have power to say, that I must leave ye. Farewell! with half my soul I stagger off,-- How dear this flying victory has cost, When, if I stay to struggle, I am lost. _As he is going forward, Nymphs and Sylvans come out from behind the Trees. A Bass and two Trebles sing the following Song to a Minuet._ Dance with a Song, all with Branches in their Hands. Song. _How happy the lover, How easy his chain, How pleasing his pain, How sweet to discover He sighs not in vain. For love every creature Is formed by his nature; No joys are above The pleasures of love._ The Dance continues, with the same measure played alone. II. _In vain are our graces, In vain are your eyes, If love you despise; When age furrows faces, 'Tis time to be wise. Then use the short blessing, That flies in possessing: No joys are above The pleasures of love._ _Arth._ And what are the fantastic fairy joys, To love like mine? false joys, false welcomes all. Be gone, ye Sylvan trippers of the green; Fly after night, and overtake the moon. [_Here the Dancers, Singers, and Syrens vanish._ This goodly tree seems queen of all the grove. The ringlets round her trunk declare her guilty Of many midnight-sabbaths revelled here. Her will I first attempt. [ARTHUR _strikes at the Tree, and cuts it; Blood spouts out of it; a groan follows, then a shriek_. Good heavens, what monstrous prodigies are these! Blood follows from my blow; the wounded rind Spouts on my sword, and sanguine dies the plain. [_He strikes again: The Voice of_ EMMELINE _from behind_. Em. [_from behind._] Forbear, if thou hast pity, ah, forbear! These groans proceed not from a senseless plant; No spouts of blood run welling from a tree. _Arth._ Speak what thou art; I charge thee, speak thy being, Thou, that hast made my curdled blood run back, My heart heave up, my hair to rise in bristles, And scarcely left a voice to ask thy name! [EMMEL. _breaks out of the Tree, shewing her Arm bloody_. _Em._ Whom thou hast hurt, unkind and cruel, see; Look on this blood; 'tis fatal still to me, To bear thy wounds; my heart has felt them first. _Arth._ 'Tis she; amazement roots me to the ground!