Languages & literature > Alfred: a masque

ALFRED:
24
Come,
O come, and here repofe thee from the ftorm.
Within thefe flickering arms.
£lgruda, holding him of.
Yet—let me view thee——
My king and hulband—do I find thee thus l
[falling into his arms.
Unknown ! unferv’d ! unhonour’d ! none to tend thee{
To foothe thy woes, to watch thy broken flumbers,
With every fonder fervice, pious love
Bell knows to pay!—There is in love a power,
There is a foft divinity that draws,
Even from diflrefs, thofe tranfports that delight
The breaft they pain, and it’s beft powers exalt
Above all tafte of joys from vulgar life !
jilf. O ’tis too much—thou all that makes life glorious!
Nay look not on me with this fweet deje&ion;
Thro’ tears that pierce the foul
My children too!
My little ones! Come to your fire’s embrace :
’Tis all he can beftow—In them behold
What human grandeur is—The peafant’s offspring
Have fome retreat, fome fafe, tho’ lowly home :
But you, my babes, you have no habitation 1
With pain and peril wandering thro’ a land,
A ruin’d country you were born to rule !
The thought unmans my reafon.
SCENE IX.
Alfred, Eltruda, HerxMit.
Hermit.
I have heard
Thy fond complainings, Alfred.
4f You have then,
Good father, heard the cattle that wrings them from me.
Her. The human race are fons of forrow born:
And each mult have his portion. Vulgar minds