IRENE.
O! did Irene shine the queen of Turkey,
No more should Greece lament those pray'rs rejected;
Again, should golden splendour grace her cities,
Again, her prostrate palaces should rise,
Again, her temples sound with holy musick:
No more should danger fright, or want distress
The smiling widows, and protected orphans.
ASPASIA.
Be virtuous ends pursued by virtuous means,
Nor think th' intention sanctifies the deed:
That maxim, publish'd in an impious age,
Would loose the wild enthusiast to destroy,
And fix the fierce usurper's bloody title;
Then bigotry might send her slaves to war,
And bid success become the test of truth:
Unpitying massacre might waste the world,
And persecution boast the call of heaven.
IRENE.
Shall I not wish to cheer afflicted kings,
And plan the happiness of mourning millions?
ASPASIA.
Dream not of pow'r, thou never canst attain:
When social laws first harmoniz'd the world,
Superiour man possess'd the charge of rule,
The scale of justice, and the sword of power,
Nor left us aught, but flattery and state.
IRENE.
To me my lover's fondness will restore
Whate'er man's pride has ravish'd from our sex.
ASPASIA.
When soft security shall prompt the sultan,
Freed from the tumults of unsettled conquest,
To fix his court, and regulate his pleasures,
Soon shall the dire seraglio's horrid gates
Close, like th' eternal bars of death, upon thee.
Immur'd, and buried in perpetual sloth,
That gloomy slumber of the stagnant soul,
There shalt thou view, from far, the quiet cottage,
And sigh for cheerful poverty in vain;
There wear the tedious hours of life away,
Beneath each curse of unrelenting heav'n,
Despair and slav'ry, solitude and guilt.
IRENE.
There shall we find the yet untasted bliss
Of grandeur and tranquillity combin'd.
ASPASIA.
Tranquillity and guilt, disjoin'd by heaven,
Still stretch in vain their longing arms afar;
Nor dare to pass th' insuperable bound.
Ah! let me rather seek the convent's cell;
There, when my thoughts, at interval of prayer,
Descend to range these mansions of misfortune,
Oft shall I dwell on our disastrous friendship,
And shed the pitying tear for lost Irene.
IRENE.
Go, languish on in dull obscurity;
Thy dazzled soul, with all its boasted greatness,
Shrinks at th' o'erpow'ring gleams of regal state,
Stoops from the blaze, like a degen'rate eagle,
And flies for shelter to the shades of life.
ASPASIA.
On me should providence, without a crime,
The weighty charge of royalty confer;
Call me to civilize the Russian wilds,
Or bid soft science polish Britain's heroes;
Soon should'st thou see, how false thy weak reproach,
My bosom feels, enkindled from the sky,
The lambent flames of mild benevolence,
Untouch'd by fierce ambition's raging fires.