'Tis the first moment of the tenderest hour,
'Tis the first mien on entering new delights,
We give our peace, our power, our souls, for these.
OPAS. Thou hast; and what remains?
ROD. Myself--Roderigo -
Whom hatred cannot reach, nor love cast down.
OPAS. Nor gratitude nor pity nor remorse
Call back, nor vows nor earth nor heaven control.
But art thou free and happy? art thou safe?
By shrewd contempt the humblest may chastise
Whom scarlet and its ermine cannot scare,
And the sword skulks for everywhere in vain,
Thee the poor victim of thy outrages,
Woman, with all her weakness, may despise.
ROD. But first let quiet age have intervened.
OPAS. Ne'er will the peace or apathy of age
Be thine, or twilight steal upon thy day.
The violent choose, but cannot change, their end:
Violence, by man or nature, must be theirs:
Thine it must be, and who to pity thee?
ROD. Behold, my solace! none. I want no pity.
OPAS. Proclaim we those the happiest of mankind
Who never knew a want? Oh, what a curse
To thee this utter ignorance of thine!
Julian, whom all the good commiserate,
Sees thee below him far in happiness:
A state indeed of no quick restlessness,
No glancing agitation, one vast swell
Of melancholy, deep, impassable,
Interminable, where his spirit alone
Broods and o'ershadows all, bears him from earth,
And purifies his chastened soul for heaven.
Both heaven and earth shall from thy grasp recede.
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