Is there aught else, my friends, I can do for you?
The conqueror draws near. Once more farewel!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet
In happier climes, and on a safer shore,
Where Cesar never shall approach us more.
[Pointing to his dead son.
There the brave youth, with love of virtue fir'd,
Who greatly in his country's cause expir'd,
Shall know he conquer'd. The firm patriot there
(Who made the welfare of mankind his care)
Tho' still by faction, vice, and fortune crost),
Shall find the gen'rous labour was not lost.
ACT V. SCENE I.
hand Plato's book on the immortality of the soul. A
drawn sword on the table by him.
IT must be so———Plato, thou reason'st well—
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heav'n itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful, thought!
Through what variety of untry'd being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a pow'r above us,
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works) he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy.
But when! or where!—this world was made for Cesar.
I'm weary of conjectures—this must end 'em.
[Laying his hand on his sword.
