NCESS. Go then, but ah! forget not--

ROLFE. I'll forget
All else, to think on thee!

PRINCESS. Thou art my life!
I lived not till I saw thee, love; and now,
I live not in thine absence. Long, Oh! long
I was the savage child of savage Nature;
And when her flowers sprang up, while each green bough
Sang with the passing west wind's rustling breath;
When her warm visitor, flush'd Summer, came,
Or Autumn strew'd her yellow leaves around,
Or the shrill north wind pip'd his mournful music,
I saw the changing brow of my wild mother
With neither love nor dread. But now, Oh! now,
I could entreat her for eternal smiles,
So thou might'st range through groves of loveliest flowers,
Where never Winter, with his icy lip,
Should dare to press thy cheek.

ROLFE. My sweet enthusiast!

PRINCESS. O! 'tis from thee that I have drawn my being:
Thou'st ta'en me from the path of savage error,
Blood-stain'd and rude, where rove my countrymen,
And taught me heavenly truths, and fill'd my heart
With sentiments sublime, and sweet, and social.
Oft has my winged spirit, following thine,
Cours'd the bright day-beam, and the star of night,
And every rolling planet of the sky,
Around their circling orbits. O my love!
Guided by thee, has not my daring soul,
O'ertopt the far-off mountains of the east,
Where, as our fathers' fable, shad'wy hunters
Pursue the deer, or clasp the melting maid,
'Mid ever blooming spring? Thence, soaring high
From the deep vale of legendary fiction,
Hast thou not heaven-ward turn'd my dazzled sight,
Where sing the spirits of the blessed good
Around the bright throne of the Holy One?
This thou hast done; and ah! what couldst thou more,
Belov'd preceptor, but direct that ray,
Which beams from Heaven to animate existence,
And bid my swelling bosom beat with love!

ROLFE. O, my dear scholar!

PRINCESS. Prithee, chide me, love:
My idle prattle holds thee from thy purpose.

ROLFE. O! speak more music! and I'll listen to it,
Like stilly midnight to sweet Philomel.

PRINCESS. Nay, now begone; for thou must go: ah! fly,
The sooner to return--

ROLFE. Thus, then, adieu! [_Embrace._
But, ere the face of morn blush rosy red,
To see the dew-besprent, cold virgin ground
Stain'd by licentious step; Oh, long before
The foot of th' earliest furred forrester,
Do mark its imprint on morn's misty sheet,
With sweet good morrow will I