Their chairs were perish’d to support the flame 780
That warm’d his agued limbs, and, sad to see,
That shook him fiercely as he gazed on me.
“I was confused in this unhappy view:
My wife! my friend! I could not think it true;
My children’s mother—my Alicia—laid
On such a bed! so wretched—so afraid!
And her gay, young seducer, in the guise
Of all we dread, abjure, defy, despise,
And all the fear and terror in his look,