Chrysanthus (aside).
Now comes near thee,
O my heart, thy threatened trial!
Lady, pardon the denial,
But I would nor see nor hear thee.
Nisida.
Not so ungallantly surely
Wilt thou act, as not to see
One who comes to speak with thee?
Chrysanthus.
To see one who thinks so poorly
Of herself, and with such lightness
Owns she comes to speak with me,
Rather would appear to be
Want of sense than of politeness.
Nisida.
All discourse is not so slight
That thou need'st decline it so.
Chrysanthus.
No, I will not see thee, no.
Thus I shut thee from my sight.
Nisida.
Vainly art thou cold and wise,
Other senses thou shouldst fear,
Since I enter by the ear,
Though thou shut me from the eyes.
Sings.
"The blesséd rapture of forgetting
Never doth my heart deserve,
What my memory would preserve
Is the memory I 'm regretting".
Chrysanthus.
That melting voice, that melody
Spell-bound holds th' entrancéd soul.
Ah! from such divine control
Who his fettered soul could free?—
Human Siren, leave me, go!
Too well I feel its fatal power.
I faint before it like a flower
By warm-winds wooed in noontide's glow.
The close-pressed lips the mouth can lock,
And so repress the vain reply,
The lid can veil th' unwilling eye
From all that may offend and shock,—
Nature doth seem a niggard here,
Unequally her gifts disposing,
For no instinctive means of closing
She gives the unprotected ear.