TAMERLANE.
59
Is it so easy to thee, to forsake me?Can'st thou resolve, with all this cold Indifference,Never to see me more? To leave me hereThe miserable Mourner of thy Fate,Condemn'd, to waste my Widow'd Virgin Youth,My tedious Days and Nights in lonely Weeping,And never know the Voice of Comfort more.
Ax.Search not too deep the Sorrows of my Breast;Thou say'st, I am Indifferent, and Cold.Oh! is it possible, my Eyes should tellSo little of the fighting Storm within.Oh! turn thee from me, save me from thy Beauties,Falshood and Ruin all look lovely there.Oh! let my lab'ring Soul yet struggle thro'———I will———I would resolve to die, and leave thee.
Baj.Then let him die,———He trifles with my Favour;I have too long attended his Resolves.
Sel. to Baj.] Oh! stay a Minute, yet a Minute longer;A Minute is a little space in Life:There is a kind Consenting in his Eyes,And I shall win him to your Royal Will.Oh! my Axalla, seem but to Consent——— [To Axalla aside.Unkind and Cruel, will you then do nothing?I find, I am not worth thy least of Cares.
Ax.Oh! labour not to hang Dishonour on me:I could bear Sickness, Pain, and Poverty,Those mortal Evils worse than Death, for thee.But this.———It has the force of Fate against us,And cannot be.
Sel.See, see, Sir, he relents, [To Bajazet.Already he inclines to own your Cause:A little longer, and he is all yours.
Baj.Then mark how far a Father's fondness yields:Till Midnight I defer the Death he merits,And give him up till then to thy Persuasion.If by that time he meets my Will, he lives;If not, thy self shalt own, he dies with Justice.
Ax.
