FLORO.

I pray

That you depart hence with your people, and
Leave us to finish what we have begun

Without advantage.

CYPRIAN.

Though you may imagine

That I know little of the laws of duel,

Which vanity and

valour instituted,

You are in error.

By my birth I am

Held no less than yourselves to know the limits
Of honour and of infamy, nor has study

Quenched the free spirit which first ordered them;
And thus to me, as to one well experienced
In the false quicksands of the sea of honour,
You may refer the merits of the case;
And if I should perceive in your relation
That either has the right to satisfaction
From the other, I give you my word of honour
To leave you.

LELIO.

Under this condition then
I will relate the cause, and you will cede
And must confess th' impossibility
Of compromise; for the same lady is
Beloved by Floro and myself.

FLORO.

It seems

Much to me that the light of day should look

Upon that idol of my heart-but he-
Leave us to fight, according to thy word.

CYPRIAN.

Permit one question further: is the lady
Impossible to hope or not?

LELIO.

She is

So excellent, that if the light of day
Should excite Floro's jealousy, it were
Without just cause, for even the light of day
Trembles to gaze on her.

O, would that I could lift my hope

So high! for though she is extremely poor,
Her virtue is her dowry.

CYPRIAN.

And if you both

Would marry her, is it not weak and vain,
Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand
To slur her honour? What would the world say
If one should slay the other, and if she
Should afterwards espouse the murderer?

[The rivals agree to refer their quarrel to CYPRIAN; who in consequence visits JUSTINA, and becomes enamoured of her: she disdains him, and he retires to a solitary seashore.

SCENE II.

CYPRIAN.

O memory! permit it not
That the tyrant of my thought
Be another soul that still
Holds dominion o'er the will;
That would refuse, but can no more,
To bend, to tremble, and adore.
Vain idolatry!—I saw,

And gazing became blind with error;
Weak ambition, which the awe
Of her presence bound to terror!
So beautiful she was—and I,
Between my love and jealousy,
Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
Unworthy as it may appear;-

So bitter is the life I live,

That, hear me, Hell! I now would give

To thy most detested spirit

My soul, for ever to inherit,

To suffer punishment and pine,

So this woman may be mine.

Hear'st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it?
My soul is offered!

DÆMON (unseen).

I accept it.

[Tempest, with thunder and lightning.

CYPRIAN.

What is this! ye heavens, for ever pure,

At once intensely radiant and obscure!

Athwart the ethereal halls

The lightning's arrow and the thunder-balls The day affright,

As from the horizon round,

Burst with earthquake sound,

In mighty torrents the electric fountains ;Clouds quench the sun, and thunder smoke Strangles the air, and fire eclipses heaven. Philosophy, thou canst not even

Compel their causes underneath thy yoke, From yonder clouds even to the waves below The fragments of a single ruin choke

Imagination's flight;

For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light, The ashes of the desolation cast

Upon the gloomy blast,

Tell of the footsteps of the storm.
And nearer see the melancholy form
Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea,
Drives miserably!

And it must fly the pity of the port,
Or perish, and its last and sole resort
Is its own raging enemy.

The terror of the thrilling cry

Was a fatal prophecy

Of coming death, who hovers now

Upon that shattered prow,

That they who die not may be dying still.

And not alone the insane elements

Are populous with wild portents,
But that sad ship is as a miracle
Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast
It seems as if it had arrayed its form
With the headlong storm.

It strikes I almost feel the shock,

It stumbles on a jagged rock,—

Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast. A tempest-All exclaim within

We are all lost!

DEMON (within).

Now from this plank will I

Pass to the land, and thus fulfil my scheme.

CYPRIAN.

As in contempt of the elemental rage

A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's
Great form is in a watery eclipse
Obliterated from the Ocean's page,

And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,
A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave
Is heaped over its carcase, like a grave.

The DAMON enters as escaped from the sea.
DEMON (aside).

It was essential to my purposes

To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,
That in this unknown form I might at length
Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture
Sustained upon the mountain, and assail
With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
Forging the instruments of his destruction
Even from his love and from his wisdom.—0
Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom
I seek a refuge from the monster who
Precipitates itself upon me.

CYPRIAN.

Friend,

Collect thyself; and be the memory

Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow