Page:The Mysterious Mother - Walpole (1781).djvu/26
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THE MYSTERIOUS MOTHER.
That innocence alone is happiness?
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamp'd with crimes are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal? Shall he teach me charms and spells,
To make my sense believe against my sense?
Shall I think practices and penances
Will, if he say so, give the health of virtue
To gnawing self-reproach?—I know they cannot.
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction.
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the god reveal'd
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was plac'd
In some saint's casual custody. Weak minds
Want their soul's fortune told by oracles
And holy juglers. Me, nor oracles,
Nor prophets, death alone can certify,
Whether, when justice's full dues exacted,
Mercy shall grant one drop to flake my torment.
—Here, father, break we off; you to your calling;
I to my tears and mournful occupation.
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamp'd with crimes are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal? Shall he teach me charms and spells,
To make my sense believe against my sense?
Shall I think practices and penances
Will, if he say so, give the health of virtue
To gnawing self-reproach?—I know they cannot.
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction.
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the god reveal'd
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was plac'd
In some saint's casual custody. Weak minds
Want their soul's fortune told by oracles
And holy juglers. Me, nor oracles,
Nor prophets, death alone can certify,
Whether, when justice's full dues exacted,
Mercy shall grant one drop to flake my torment.
—Here, father, break we off; you to your calling;
I to my tears and mournful occupation.
End of the First Act.
ACT