with the innocent. 
     ’Twas thou didst link us closely hand in hand,
     ‘To live in bliss together’ thy command. 
     Oh, shall the will that both our lives did bless
     Doom both these lives to death—­to nothingness? 
     When lips are sealed to lips, and heart to heart,
     ’Tis tyranny, not law, such love to part. 
     Oh, not a tyrant, but a father be,
     Forgive,—­give back—­restore my love to me!

FELIX.  Dear child, thy father is thy father still, Nothing hath parted us, and nothing will.  My heart is tender, and it beats for thee:  Against this madman let us joined be.  O wretched man, hast thou no eyes to see, no heart to feel?  Thy guilt, thy crime, I would efface, thy pardon I would seal, For thee my daughter cannot die—­say, must she die with thee?  A victim to the only sin which ne’er can pardoned be.  O sight most strange!  Here at thy knees as suppliant I sue!  (Felix kneels.) The evil that thyself hast wrought—­that ill thyself undo!

     POLY. 
     Arise, old man, from knees unused to bend,
     Or to another ear petition send! 
     This artifice befits nor me nor thee,
     To beg of one twice threatened!—­Mockery! 
     First, by thy hand Nearchus felt the flame,
     Then love, forsooth, thy plea—­(profaned name!)
     The path of Christian neophyte hast thou trod,
     And, in God’s name, hast mocked Almighty God! 
     Earth, heaven, and hell in turn have been thy tool,
     And him thou hast traduced thou wouldst befool! 
     Go,—­bully-flatterer—­liar!—­Every part
     Thou playest, while delay doth break my heart! 
     Enough of dallying!  While thou dost dissolve
     Thy feeble soul in doubt, hear my resolve: 
     The God who made me—­Him will I adore;
     He holds my plighted faith,—­and evermore
     He works salvation for his ransomed race—­
     Who gave His Son to death that we might life embrace;
     And this—­Christ’s sacrifice—­continued day by day,
     The Christ reveals and pleads—­The Life—­The Truth—­The Way! 
     No more His mysteries to self-stopped ears
     Will I disclose—­(he heedeth not nor hears.)
     (Pointing to Felix.)
     Pray then to these thy gods of wood and stone,
     To gods who every deed of crime enthrone,
     Who boast their malice, and their foul incest,
     Vaunt theft and murder—­all that we detest. 
     This, their example,—­Pagan—­follow thou! 
     To Pluto bend, to Aphrodite bow! 
     For this I broke their altars, rased their shrine,—­
     Yea, for those crimes that thou dost call divine! 
     And what I did, that would I do once more
     Before Severus—­Decius,—­nay, before
     The eyes of all men;—­so would I proclaim
     One God alone adored,—­one Holiest Name!

     FELIX. 
     At last my bounties yield to wrath most stern, most just. 
     Die! or the gods adore!