Page:The Mysterious Mother - Walpole (1781).djvu/28
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THE MYSTERIOUS MOTHER.
Had so obliterated pleasure's relish—
She might have pardon'd what she felt so well.
She might have pardon'd what she felt so well.
FLORIAN.
Forgive me, Edmund; nay, nor think I preach,
If I, god wot, of morals loose enough,
Seem to condemn you. You have often told me,
The night, the very night that to your arms
Gave pretty Beatrice's melting beauties,
Was the same night on which your father died.
Forgive me, Edmund; nay, nor think I preach,
If I, god wot, of morals loose enough,
Seem to condemn you. You have often told me,
The night, the very night that to your arms
Gave pretty Beatrice's melting beauties,
Was the same night on which your father died.
EDMUND.
'Tis true—and thou, sage monitor, dost thou
Hold love a crime so irremissible?
Wouldst thou have turn'd thee from a willing girl,
To sing a requiem to thy father's soul?
I thought my mother busied with her tears,
Her faintings, and her masses, while I stole
To Beatrice's chamber.—How my mother
Became appriz'd, I know not: but her heart,
Never too partial to me, grew estrang'd.
Estrang'd!—aversion in its fellest mood
Scowl'd from her eye, and drove me from her sight.
She call'd me impious: nam'd my honest lewdness,
A profanation of my father's ashes.
I knelt and wept, and, like a puling boy,
For now my blood was cool, believ'd, confess'd
My father's hov'ring spirit incens'd against me.
This weak confession but inflam'd her wrath;
And when I would have bath'd her hand with tears,
She snatch'd it back with horror.
'Tis true—and thou, sage monitor, dost thou
Hold love a crime so irremissible?
Wouldst thou have turn'd thee from a willing girl,
To sing a requiem to thy father's soul?
I thought my mother busied with her tears,
Her faintings, and her masses, while I stole
To Beatrice's chamber.—How my mother
Became appriz'd, I know not: but her heart,
Never too partial to me, grew estrang'd.
Estrang'd!—aversion in its fellest mood
Scowl'd from her eye, and drove me from her sight.
She call'd me impious: nam'd my honest lewdness,
A profanation of my father's ashes.
I knelt and wept, and, like a puling boy,
For now my blood was cool, believ'd, confess'd
My father's hov'ring spirit incens'd against me.
This weak confession but inflam'd her wrath;
And when I would have bath'd her hand with tears,
She snatch'd it back with horror.
FLORIAN.
'Twas the trick
Of over-acted sorrow. Grief fatigues;
And each collateral circumstance is seiz'd
'Twas the trick
Of over-acted sorrow. Grief fatigues;
And each collateral circumstance is seiz'd
To