looking at them, drops them, and clasps his hands in agony._]

_Amel._ Father! dear father!

_Alfon._ Father! I merit not that name, nor any
Sweet, good, or gracious. Call me villain! fiend!
Suspicious tyrant! treacherous, calm assassin!
Who slew the truest, noblest friend, that ever
Man's heart was blest with!--Ha! why kneels my child?

_Amel._ For pardon first that I have dar'd deceive thee----

_Alfon._ Deceive me!

_Amel._ Next to pay pure thanks to Heaven,
Which grants me to allay my father's anguish
With words of most sweet comfort.

_Alfon._ Ha! what means't thou?

_Amel._ Four years are past since first Orsino's sorrows
Struck on my startled ear: that sound once heard,
Ne'er left my ear again, but day and night,
Whether I walked or sate, awake or sleeping,
The captive, the poor captive still was there.
The rain seemed but _his_ tears; his hopeless groans
Spoke in each hollow wind; his nights of anguish
Robbed mine of rest; or, if I slept, my dreams
Showed his pale wasted form, his beamless eye
Fixed on the moon, his meager hands now folded
In dull despair, now rending his few locks
Untimely gray; and now again in frenzy
Dreadful he shrieked; tore with his teeth his flesh;
'Gainst his dark prison-walls dashed out his brains,
And died despairing! From my couch I started;
Sunk upon my knees; I kissed this cross,
----"Captive," I cried, "I'll die or set thee free!"----

_Alfon._ And didst thou? Bless thee, didst thou?

_Amel._ Moved by gold,
More by my prayers, most by his own heart's pity,
His jailer yielded to release Orsino,
And spread his death's report.--One night when all
Was hushed, I sought his tower, unlocked his chains,
And bade him rise and fly! With vacant stare,
Bewildered, wondering, doubting what he heard,
He followed to the gate. But when he viewed
The sky thick sown with stars, and drank heaven's air,
And heard the nightingale and saw the moon
Shed o'er these groves a shower of silver light,
Hope thawed his frozen heart; in livelier current
Flowed his grief-thickened blood, his proud soul melted,
And down his furrowed cheeks kind tears came stealing,
Sad, sweet, and gentle as the dews, which evening
Sheds o'er expiring day. Words had he none,
But with his looks he thanked me. At my feet
He sunk; he wrung my hand; his pale lips pressed it;
He sighed, he rose, he fled; he lives, my father!

_Alfon._ [_Kneeling._] Fountain of bliss! words are too poor for thanks;
Oh! deign to re