Almah. My sad condition may your pity move; But look not on me with the eyes of love:—­ I must be brief, though I have much to say.

Almanz. No, speak; for I can hear you now all day.  Her sueing sooths me with a secret pride:  [Softly. A suppliant beauty cannot be denied:  [Aside. Even while I frown, her charms the furrows seize; And I’m corrupted with the power to please.

Almah. Though in your worth no cause of fear I see,
I fear the insolence of victory;
As you are noble, sir, protect me then
From the rude outrage of insulting men.

Almanz. Who dares touch her I love?  I’m all o’er love:  Nay, I am love; love shot, and shot so fast, He shot himself into my breast at last.

Almah. You see before you her, who should be queen, Since she is promised to Boabdelin.

Almanz. Are you beloved by him?  O wretched fate, First that I love at all; then, loved too late!  Yet, I must love!

Almah. Alas, it is in vain;
Fate for each other did not us ordain. 
The chances of this day too clearly show
That heaven took care that it should not be so.

Almanz. Would heaven had quite forgot me this one day! 
But fate’s yet hot—­
I’ll make it take a bent another way.
                      [He walks swiftly and discomposedly, studying.
I bring a claim which does his right remove;
You’re his by promise, but you’re mine by love. 
’Tis all but ceremony which is past;
The knot’s to tie which is to make you fast. 
Fate gave not to Boabdelin that power;
He wooed you but as my ambassador.

Almah. Our souls are tied by holy vows above.

Almanz. He signed but his:  but I will seal my love.  I love you better, with more zeal than he.

Almah. This day I gave my faith to him, he his to me.

Almanz. Good heaven, thy book of fate before me lay,
But to tear out the journal of this day: 
Or, if the order of the world below
Will not the gap of one whole day allow,
Give me that minute when she made her vow! 
That minute, ev’n the happy from their bliss might give;
And those, who live in grief, a shorter time would live. 
So small a link, if broke, the eternal chain
Would, like divided waters, join again.—­
It wonnot be; the fugitive is gone,
Prest by the crowd of following minutes on: 
That precious moment’s out of nature fled,
And in the heap of common rubbish laid,
Of things that once have been, and are decayed.

Almah. Your passion, like a fright, suspends my pain;
It meets, o’erpowers, and beats mine back again: 
But as, when tides against the current flow,
The native stream runs its own course below,
So, though your griefs possess the upper part,
My own have deeper channels in my heart.