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DOUGLAS.

ACT I.

SCENE,-The Court of a Castle surrounded

with Woods.

Enter Lady RANDOLPH.

Lady Rand. YE woods and wilds, whose melancholy gloom

Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth
The voice of sorrow from my bursting heart,
Farewell a while: I will not leave you long;
For in your shades I deem some spirit dwells,
Who from the chiding stream, or groaning oak,
Still hears and answers to Matilda's moan.
O, Douglas, Douglas! if departed ghosts
Are e'er permitted to review this world,

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Within the circle of that wood thou art,
And with the passion of immortals hear'st
My lamentation; hear'st thy wretched wife
Weep for her husband slain, her infant lost.
My brother's timeless death I seem to mourn,
Who perish'd with thee on this fatal day.
To thee I lift my voice; to thee address
The plaint which mortal car has never heard.
O disregard me not; though I am call'd
Another's now, my heart is wholly thine.
Incapable of change, affection lies

Buried, my Douglas, in thy bloody grave.-
But Randolph comes, whom fate has made my
lord,

To chide my anguish, and defraud the dead.

Enter Lord RANDOLPH.

Lord Rand. Again these weeds of woe! say, dost thou well

To feed a passion which consumes thy life?
The living claim some duty; vainly thou
Bestow'st thy cares upon the silent dead.

Lady Rand. Silent, alas! is he for whom I

mourn:

Childless, without memorial of his name,

He only now in my remembrance lives.
This fatal day stirs my time-settled sorrow-
Troubles afresh the fountain of my heart.

Lord Rand. When was it pure of sadness! These black weeds

Express the wonted colour of thy mind,
For ever dark and dismal. Seven long years
Are pass'd, since we were join'd by sacred ties:
Clouds all the while have hung upon thy brow,
Nor broke, nor parted by one gleam of joy.
Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish,
As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand,
Has pass'd o'er thee in vain.

Lady Rand. If time to come

Should prove as ineffectual, yet, my lord,

Thou can'st not blame me.

youth

When our Scottish

Vied with each other for my luckless love,
Oft I besought them, I implored them all
Not to assail me with my father's aid,
Nor blend their better destiny with mine;
For melancholy had congeal'd my blood,
And froze affection in my chilly breast.

At last my sire, roused with the base attempt
To force me from him, which thou rend'redst vain,

To his own daughter bow'd his hoary head,
Besought me to commiserate his age,

And vow'd he should not, could not, die in peace,
Unless he saw me wedded, and secured
From violence and outrage. Then, my lord!
In my extreme distress I call'd on thee,
Thee I bespaké, profess'd my strong desire
To lead a single, solitary life,

And begg'd thy nobleness, not to demand
Her for a wife whose heart was dead to love.
How thou persisted'st after this, thou know'st,
And must confess that I am not unjust,

Nor more to thee than to myself injurious.
Lord Rand. That I confess; yet ever must re-

gret

The grief I cannot cure.

Would thou wert not

Composed of grief and tenderness alone,
But hadst a spark of other passions in thee,
Pride, anger, vanity, the strong desire

Of admiration, dear to woman kind;

These might contend with, and allay thy grief,
As meeting tides and currents smooth our frith.
Lady Rand. To such a cause the human mind
oft owes

Its transient calm, a calm I envy not.

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