Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Dr. Johnson's Works.

Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Dr. Johnson's Works.

DEMETRIUS. 
Swift let us rush upon the careless tyrant,
Nor give him leisure for another crime.

LEONTIUS. 
Then let us now resolve, nor idly waste
Another hour in dull deliberation.

CALI. 
But see, where destin’d to protract our counsels,
Comes Mustapha.—­Your Turkish robes conceal you. 
Retire with speed, while I prepare to meet him
With artificial smiles, and seeming friendship.

SCENE V.

CALI, MUSTAPHA.

CALI. 
I see the gloom, that low’rs upon thy brow;
These days of love and pleasure charm not thee;
Too slow these gentle constellations roll;
Thou long’st for stars, that frown on human kind,
And scatter discord from their baleful beams.

MUSTAPHA. 
How blest art thou, still jocund and serene,
Beneath the load of business, and of years!

CALI. 
Sure, by some wond’rous sympathy of souls,
My heart still beats responsive to the sultan’s;
I share, by secret instinct, all his joys,
And feel no sorrow, while my sov’reign smiles.

MUSTAPHA. 
The sultan comes, impatient for his love;
Conduct her hither; let no rude intrusion
Molest these private walks, or care invade
These hours, assign’d to pleasure and Irene.

SCENE VI.

MAHOMET, MUSTAPHA.

MAHOMET. 
Now, Mustapha, pursue thy tale of horrour. 
Has treason’s dire infection reach’d my palace? 
Can Cali dare the stroke of heav’nly justice,
In the dark precincts of the gaping grave,
And load with perjuries his parting soul? 
Was it for this, that, sick’ning in Epirus,
My father call’d me to his couch of death,
Join’d Cali’s hand to mine, and falt’ring cried,
Restrain the fervour of impetuous youth
With venerable Cali’s faithful counsels? 
Are these the counsels, this the faith of Cali? 
Were all our favours lavish’d on a villain? 
Confest?—­

MUSTAPHA. 
Confest by dying Menodorus. 
In his last agonies, the gasping coward,
Amidst the tortures of the burning steel,
Still fond of life, groan’d out the dreadful secret,
Held forth this fatal scroll, then sunk to nothing.

MAHOMET. examining the paper
His correspondence with our foes of Greece! 
His hand! his seal!  The secrets of my soul,
Conceal’d from all but him!  All, all conspire
To banish doubt, and brand him for a villain! 
Our schemes for ever cross’d, our mines discover’d,
Betray’d some traitor lurking near my bosom. 
Oft have I rag’d, when their wide-wasting cannon
Lay pointed at our batt’ries yet unform’d,
And broke the meditated lines of war. 
Detested Cali, too, with artful wonder,
Would shake his wily head, and closely whisper,
Beware of Mustapha, beware of treason.

MUSTAPHA. 
The faith of Mustapha disdains suspicion;
But yet, great emperour, beware of treason;
Th’ insidious bassa, fir’d by disappointment—­

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Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.