ASPASIA. 
Forbear this lavish pomp of dreadful praise;
The horrid images of war and slaughter
Renew our sorrows, and awake our fears.

ABDALLA. 
Cali, methinks yon waving trees afford
A doubtful glimpse of our approaching friends;
Just as I mark’d them, they forsook the shore,
And turn’d their hasty steps towards the garden.

CALI. 
Conduct these queens, Abdalla, to the palace: 
Such heav’nly beauty, form’d for adoration,
The pride of monarchs, the reward of conquest! 
Such beauty must not shine to vulgar eyes.

SCENE III.

CALI, solus.

How heav’n, in scorn of human arrogance,
Commits to trivial chance the fate of nations! 
While, with incessant thought, laborious man
Extends his mighty schemes of wealth and pow’r,
And towers and triumphs in ideal greatness;
Some accidental gust of opposition
Blasts all the beauties of his new creation,
O’erturns the fabrick of presumptuous reason,
And whelms the swelling architect beneath it. 
Had not the breeze untwin’d the meeting boughs,
And, through the parted shade, disclos’d the Greeks,
Th’ important hour had pass’d, unheeded, by,
In all the sweet oblivion of delight,
In all the fopperies of meeting lovers;
In sighs and tears, in transports and embraces,
In soft complaints, and idle protestations.

SCENE IV.

CALI, DEMETRIUS, LEONTIUS.

CALI. 
Could omens fright the resolute and wise,
Well might we fear impending disappointments.

LEONTIUS. 
Your artful suit, your monarch’s fierce denial,
The cruel doom of hapless Menodorus—­

DEMETRIUS. 
And your new charge, that dear, that heav’nly maid—­

LEONTIUS. 
All this we know already from Abdalla.

DEMETRIUS. 
Such slight defeats but animate the brave
To stronger efforts and maturer counsels.

CALI. 
My doom confirm’d establishes my purpose. 
Calmly he heard, till Amurath’s resumption
Rose to his thought, and set his soul on fire: 
When from his lips the fatal name burst out,
A sudden pause th’ imperfect sense suspended,
Like the dread stillness of condensing storms.

DEMETRIUS. 
The loudest cries of nature urge us forward;
Despotick rage pursues the life of Cali;
His groaning country claims Leontius’ aid;
And yet another voice, forgive me, Greece,
The pow’rful voice of love, inflames Demetrius;
Each ling’ring hour alarms me for Aspasia.

CALI. 
What passions reign among thy crew, Leontius? 
Does cheerless diffidence oppress their hearts? 
Or sprightly hope exalt their kindling spirits? 
Do they, with pain, repress the struggling shout,
And listen eager to the rising wind?

LEONTIUS. 
All there is hope, and gaiety, and courage,
No cloudy doubts, or languishing delays;
Ere I could range them on the crowded deck,
At once a hundred voices thunder’d round me,
And ev’ry voice was liberty and Greece.