Narcissa! pity bleeds at thought of thee.
Yet thou wast only near me; not myself. 1060
Survive myself?—That cures all other woe.
Narcissa lives; Philander is forgot.
O the soft commerce! O the tender ties,
Close twisted with the fibres of the heart!
Which, broken, break them; and drain off the soul
Of human joy; and make it pain to live—
And is it then to live? When such friends part,
’Tis the survivor dies—My heart! no more. 1068