Aur. Whence can proceed so wonderful a change?

Nour. Can kindness to desert, like yours, be strange? 
Kindness by secret sympathy is tied;
For noble souls in nature are allied. 
I saw with what a brow you braved your fate;
Yet with what mildness bore your father’s hate. 
My virtue, like a string, wound up by art
To the same sound, when yours was touched, took part,
At distance shook, and trembled at my heart.

Aur. I’ll not complain, my father is unkind,
Since so much pity from a foe I find. 
Just heaven reward this act!

Nour. ’Tis well the debt no payment does demand;
You turn me over to another hand. 
But happy, happy she,
And with the blessed above to be compared,
Whom you yourself would, with yourself, reward: 
The greatest, nay, the fairest of her kind,
Would envy her that bliss, which you designed.

Aur. Great princes thus, when favourites they raise, To justify their grace, their creatures praise.

Nour. As love the noblest passion we account,
So to the highest object it should mount. 
It shews you brave when mean desires you shun;
An eagle only can behold the sun: 
And so must you, if yet presage divine
There be in dreams,—­or was’t a vision mine?

Aur. Of me?

Nour. And who could else employ my thought? 
I dreamed, your love was by love’s goddess sought;
Officious Cupids, hovering o’er your head,
Held myrtle wreaths; beneath your feet were spread
What sweets soe’er Sabean springs disclose,
Our Indian jasmine, or the Syrian rose;
The wanton ministers around you strove
For service, and inspired their mother’s love: 
Close by your side, and languishing, she lies,
With blushing cheeks, short breath, and wishing eyes
Upon your breast supinely lay her head,
While on your face her famished sight she fed. 
Then, with a sigh, into these words she broke,
(And gathered humid kisses as she spoke)
Dull, and ungrateful!  Must I offer love? 
Desired of gods, and envied even by Jove: 
And dost thou ignorance or fear pretend? 
Mean soul! and darest not gloriously offend? 
Then, pressing thus his hand—­

Aur. I’ll hear no more. [Rising up.
’Twas impious to have understood before: 
And I, till now, endeavoured to mistake
The incestuous meaning, which too plain you make.

Nour. And why this niceness to that pleasure shewn,
Where nature sums up all her joys in one;
Gives all she can, and, labouring still to give,
Makes it so great, we can but taste and live: 
So fills the senses, that the soul seems fled,
And thought itself does, for the time, lie dead;
Till, like a string screwed up with eager haste,
It breaks, and is too exquisite to last?

Aur. Heavens! can you this, without just vengeance, hear? 
When will you thunder, if it now be clear? 
Yet her alone let not your thunder seize: 
I, too, deserve to die, because I please.[1]