ke youths impetuous rush'd along;
One, grasp'd his twanging bow with furious air,
While in his troubled eye sat fierce despair. 40
But all in vain his erring weapon flies,
Pierc'd by a thousand wounds, on earth he lies.
His drooping head the heart-struck Zilia rais'd,
And on the youth in speechless anguish gaz'd;
While he, who fondly shar'd his danger, flew, 45
And from his breast a reeking sabre drew.
"Deep in my faithful bosom let me hide
"The fatal steel, that would our souls divide,"
He quick exclaims--the dying warrior cries,
"Ah, yet forbear!--by all the sacred ties, 50
"That bind our hearts, forbear"--In vain he spoke,
Friendship with frantic zeal impels the stroke:
"Thyself for ever lost, thou hop'st in vain,
"The youth replied, my spirit to detain;
"From thee, my soul, in childhood's earliest year, 55
"Caught the light pleasure, and the starting tear;
"Thy friendship then my young affections blest,
"The first pure passion of my infant breast;
"That passion, which o'er life delight has shed,
"By reason cherish'd, and by virtue fed: 60
"And still in death I feel its strong controul;
"Its sacred impulse wings my fleeting soul,
"That only lingers here till thou depart,
"Whose image lives upon my fainting heart."--
In vain the gen'rous youth, with panting breath, 65
Pour'd these lost murmurs in the ear of death;
He reads the fatal truth in _Zilia's_ eye,
And gives to friendship his expiring sigh.--
But now with rage Valverda's glances roll,
And mark the vengeance rankling in his soul: 70
He bends his wrinkled brow--his lips impart
The brooding purpose of his venom'd heart;
He bids the hoary priest in mutter'd strains,
Abjure his faith, forsake his falling fanes,
While yet the ling'ring pangs of torture wait, 75
While yet _Valverda's_ power suspends his fate.
"Vain man, the victim cried, to hoary years
"Know death is mild, and virtue feels no fears:
"Cruel of spirit, come! let tortures prove
"The Power I serv'd in life, in death I love."-- 80
He ceas'd--with rugged cords his limbs they bound,
And drag the aged suff'rer on the ground;
They grasp his feeble form, his tresses tear,
His robe they rend, his shrivell'd bosom bare.
Ah, see his uncomplaining soul sustain 85