Then vifions, horrid as a murd'rer's dreams,
Chill my refolves, and blast my blooming virtue : Stern Torture shakes his bloody fcourge before me, And Anguish gnashes on the fatal wheel.
Since fear predominates in ev'ry thought,
And sways thy breast with abfolute dominion,
Think on th' infulting fcorn, the confcious pangs,
The future mis'ries that wait th' apoftate;
So fhall Timidity affift thy reason,
And Wisdom into virtue turn thy frailty.
Will not that Power that form'd the heart of woman,
And wove the feeble texture of her nerves,
Forgive those fears that shake the tender frame?
The weakness we lament, ourselves create ;
Inftructed from our infant years to court,
With counterfeited fears, the aid of man,
We learn to fhudder at the ruftling breeze,
Start at the light, and tremble in the dark;
Till, affectation ripening to belief,
And Folly frighted at her own chimeras,
Habitual cowardice ufurps the foul.
Not all like thee can brave the fhocks of fate.
Thy foul, by nature great, enlarg'd by knowledge, Soars unincumber'd with our idle cares,
And all Afpafia, but her beauty, 's man.
Each generous fentiment is thine, Demetrius,
Whofe foul, perhaps, yet mindful of Afpafia,
Now hovers o'er this melancholy fhade,
Well pleas'd to find thy precepts not forgotten.
O! could the grave reftore the pious hero,
Soon would his art or valour fet us free,
And bear us far from fervitude and crimes.
Too well I know him; his immoderate courage,
Th' impetuous fallies of exceffive virtue,
Too ftrong for love, have hurried him on death.
ASPASIA, IRENE, CALI, ABDALLA..
CALI TO ABDALLA, AS THEY ADVANCE.
Behold our future Sultanefs, Abdalla;-
Let artful flatt'ry now, to lull fufpicion,
Glide through Irene to the Sultan's ear.
Wouldft thou fubdue th' obdurate cannibal
To tender friendship, praife him to his miftrefs.
Well may those eyes that view these heav'nly charms
Reject the daughters of contending kings;
For what are pompous titles, proud alliance,
Empire or wealth, to excellence like thine ?
Receive th' impatient Sultan to thy arms;
And may a long pofterity of monarchs,
The pride and terror of fucceeding days,
Rife from the happy bed; and future queens
Diffuse Irene's beauty through the world!
Can Mahomet's imperial hand defcend
To clasp a flave? or can a foul like mine,
Unus'd to pow'r, and form'd for humbler fcenes,
Support the fplendid miferies of greatness?
No regal pageant deck'd with cafual honours,
Scorn'd by his fubjects, trampled by his foes,
No feeble tyrant of a petty state,
Courts thee to shake on a dependant throne;
Born to command, as thou to charm mankind,
The Sultan from himself derives his greatness.
Obferve, bright maid, as his refiftlefs voice
Drives on the tempeft of deftructive war,
How nation after nation falls before him.
At his dread name the diftant mountains shake
Their cloudy fummits, and the fons of fiercenefs, That range uncivilized from rock to rock, Diftruft th' eternal fortreffes of Nature,
And wish their gloomy caverns more obfcure.
Forbear this lavish pomp of dreadful praise;
The horrid images of war and flaughter
Renew our forrows, and awake our fears.
Cali, methinks yon waving trees afford
A doubtful glimpse of our approaching friends;
Juft as I mark'd them they forfook the shore,
And turn'd their hafty steps towards the garden.
Conduct thefe queens, Abdalla, to the palace:
Such heav'nly beauty, form'd for adoration,
The pride of monarchs, the reward of conqueft!
Such beauty muft not fhine to vulgar eyes.
How Heav'n, in fcorn of human arrogance,
Commits to trivial chance the fate of nations!
While with inceffant thought laborious man
Extends his mighty schemes of wealth and pow'r,
And towers and triumphs in ideal greatness;
Some accidental guft of oppofition
Blafts all the beauties of his new creation,
O'erturns the fabrick of prefumptuous reason,
And whelms the fwelling architect beneath it.
Had not the breeze untwin'd the meeting boughs,
And through the parted fhade difclos'd the Greeks,
Th' important hour had pafs'd unheeded by,
In all the sweet oblivion of delight,
In all the fopperies of meeting lovers ;
In fighs and tears, in tranfports and embraces,
In foft complaints, and idle protestations.
CALI, DEMETRIUS, LEONTIUS.
Could omens fright the resolute and wife,
Well might we fear impending disappointments.
Your artful fuit, your monarch's fierce denial,
The cruel doom of haplefs Menodorus.
And your new charge, that dear, that heav'nly maid.
All this we know already from Abdalla.
Such flight defeats but animate the brave
To stronger efforts and maturer counfels.
My doom confirm'd establishes my purpose.
Calmly he heard till Amurath's refumption
Rofe to his thought, and fet his foul on fire:
When from his lips the fatal name burft out,
A fudden pause th' imperfect fense fufpended,
Like the dread ftillness of condenfing storms.
The loudeft cries of Nature urge us forward
Defpotic rage purfues the life of Cali;
His groaning country claims Leontius' aid;
And yet another voice, forgive me, Greece,
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