Oh! unveil thyself, fair goddess,
Not in the clouds obscure and murky,
Not in vapours hide the sun,
Show its golden rays refulgent.
[He draws aside the cloak and discovers a skeleton.
But, O woe! what's this I see!
Is it a cold corse, mute, pulseless,
That within its arms expects me?
Who, in one brief moment's compass,
Could upon these faded features,
Pallid, motionless, and shrunken,
Have extinguished the bright beauties
Of the blush rose and the purple?
THE SKELETON. Cyprian, such are all the glories
Of the world that you so covet.
[The Skeleton disappears. CLARIN rushes in frightened, and embraces CYPRIAN.
* * * * *
SCENE XIV.
CLARIN and CYPRIAN.
CLARIN. Fear, for any one who wants it,
Wholesale or retail I'll furnish.
CYPRIAN. Stay! funereal shadow, stay!
Now for other ends I urge thee.
CLARIN. I am a funereal body:--
Don't you see it by my bulk here?
CYPRIAN. Ah! who are you?
CLARIN. Who I am, sir,
Or am not, myself doth puzzle.
CYPRIAN. Did you in the air's void spaces,
Or earth's caverns yawning under,
See an icy corse here vanish,
See to dust and ashes turning
All the freshness and the beauty
That it promised in its coming?
CLARIN. Do you take me, sir, for one
Of those pitiful poor lurkers
Men call spies?
CYPRIAN.
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