before my death. 
  Farewell; but take me dying in your arms, 800
  ’Tis all I can enjoy of all your charms: 
  This hand I cannot but in death resign;
  Ah! could I live! but while I live ’tis mine. 
  I feel my end approach, and thus embraced,
  Am pleased to die; but hear me speak my last: 
  Ah! my sweet foe, for you, and you alone,
  I broke my faith with injured Palamon. 
  But love the sense of right and wrong confounds,
  Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds. 
  And much I doubt, should Heaven my life prolong, 810
  I should return to justify my wrong: 
  For while my former flames remain within,
  Repentance is but want of power to sin. 
  With mortal hatred I pursued his life,
  Nor he, nor you, were guilty of the strife;
  Nor I, but as I loved; yet all combined,
  Your beauty, and my impotence of mind;
  And his concurrent flame that blew my fire;
  For still our kindred souls had one desire. 
  He had a moment’s right in point of time; 820
  Had I seen first, then his had been the crime. 
  Fate made it mine, and justified his right;
  Nor holds this earth a more deserving knight,
  For virtue, valour, and for noble blood,
  Truth, honour, all that is comprised in good;
  So help me Heaven, in all the world is none
  So worthy to be loved as Palamon. 
  He loves you too, with such an holy fire,
  As will not, cannot, but with life expire: 
  Our vow’d affections both have often tried, 830
  Nor any love but yours could ours divide. 
  Then, by my love’s inviolable band,
  By my long suffering, and my short command,
  If e’er you plight your vows when I am gone,
  Have pity on the faithful Palamon.

    This was his last; for Death came on amain,
  And exercised below his iron reign;
  Then upward to the seat of life he goes: 
  Sense fled before him, what he touch’d he froze: 
  Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw, 840
  Though less and less of Emily he saw;
  So, speechless, for a little space he lay;
  Then grasp’d the hand he held, and sigh’d his soul away.

    But whither went his soul, let such relate
  Who search the secrets of the future state: 
  Divines can say but what themselves believe;
  Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative: 
  For, were all plain, then all sides must agree,
  And faith itself be lost in certainty. 
  To live uprightly, then, is sure the best, 850
  To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest. 
  The soul of Arcite went where heathens go,
  Who better live than we, though less they know.