Oh, may I too -
COV. But peacefully, and late,
Live and die here!
JUL. I have, alas! myself
Laid waste the hopes where my fond fancy strayed,
And view their ruins with unaltered eyes.
COV. My mother will at last return to thee.
Might I once more, but--could I now behold her,
Tell her--ah me! what was my rash desire?
No, never tell her these inhuman things,
For they would waste her tender heart away
As they waste mine; or tell when I have died,
Only to show her that her every care
Could not have saved, could not have comforted.
That she herself, clasping me once again
To her sad breast, had said, Covilla! go,
Go, hide them in the bosom of thy God!
Sweet mother, that far-distant voice I hear,
And passing out of youth and out of life,
I would not turn at last, and disobey.
SECOND ACT: SECOND SCENE.
SISABERT enters.
SIS. Uncle, and is it true, say, can it be,
That thou art leader of these faithless Moors?
That thou impeachest thy own daughter's fame
Through the whole land, to seize upon the throne
By the permission of those recreant slaves?
What shall I call thee? art thou--speak, Count Julian -
A father, or a soldier, or a man?
JUL. All--or this day had never seen me here.
SIS. O falsehood! worse than woman's!
COV. Once, my cousin,
Far gentler words were uttered from your lips.
If you loved me, you loved my father first,
More justly and more steadily, ere love
Was passion and illusion and deceit.
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